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AND 


TRAVELS 
IN LONDON 


W. M. THACKERAY 


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LOVELL’S library;-catalogue. 


1. Hyperion, by S. W, Longfellow.. 20 
%. Outre-MeG.by H. W. Longfellow. 20 

3. Th« Happy Boy, by Bjorneon. . . . 10 

4. Arne, by BjOrnson '40 

5. Frankenstein, by M rs. Shelley . i . 10 

6. The Last of the Mohicank. 20 

7. Ci y tie. by Joseph Hatt on 20 

5. The Moonstone, by t ollinS, P’t 1. 10 

9. The Moonstone, by Collin?. 

10. Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, 20 

11. The Coming Race, by Lytton.... 10 

12. Leila, by Lord Lytton . 10 

13. The Three Spaniards, by Walker. 20 

14. TheTricks of the GreeksTTn veiled. 20 

15. L’ Abbe Constantin, by iialdvy.,20 

16. Freckles, by R. Redclifl . ..20 

17. The Dark Colleen, by Harriett J av.20 

18. They Were Married! by- 'Waiter 

Besant and J amcs Rice, ....... 10 

Seekers after God, by Farrar .20 

20. The Spanish Nun, byDeQuincey.10 

21. The Green Mountain Boys. . . . ..20 

22. FI curette, by Eugene Scribe. , . . .29 ] 

23. Second Thoughts, by Broughton, 20 

24. The New Magdalen, by Collins. .20 

25. Divorce, by Margaret Lee 20 

26. Life of Washington, by Henley . .20 

27. Social Enqueue, by Mrs. Saville.15 

28. Single Heart and Double Fac 9. JO 

:± Irene, by Carl Detlef. . . 20 

30. V ice Y e rs a, by F . A n ? tey .2 ) 

31. Eruest Mali ravers, by Lord LyttohSO. 

32. The Haunted House and Calderon 

the Courtier, by Lord Lytton . . fO 

33. John Halifax, by Miss Hillock; ...20 

34. 800 Leagues on the Amazon ...... 10 

35. The Cryptogram, by Jules Verne.10 

38. Life of Marion, by Horry £.80 

37. Paul and Virginia 10 

88. Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens. . 2) 

89. The Hermits, by Kingsley .20 

40. An Adventure in Thule, and Mar- 

riage of Moira Fergus, Black .10 

41. A Marriage in High Life. 20 

42. Robin, by Mrs, Parr. ... .20 

43. Two on a Tower, byThos Hardy. 20 

44. Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson — 10 

45. Alice; or, the Mysteries, being 

Part II. of Ernest Malt-ravers.. 80 

46. Duke of Kandos, by A. Mathey. ..20 

47. Baron Munchausen 10 

48. A Princess of Thule, by Black. 20 

49. The Secret Despatch, by Grant, 20 

50. Early Days of Christianity, by 

Canon Farrar, D D , Part I ... .20 
'Early Days of Christianity, Pt. 11.20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield, by Goldsmith. 10 

52. Progress and Poverty, by Henry 

George 20 

53. The Spy, by Cooper ....... 20 

54. East Lynne, by Mrs. Wood. .-.80 

55. A Strange Story, by Lord Lytron. . . 20 

56. Adam Bede, by Eliot, Part 1 15 

Adam Bede, Part II. . .15 

57. The Golden Shaft/ by Gibbon, . ..20 , 

58. Portia, by The Duchess , 20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii, by Lytton.. 20 
$0. The Two Duchesses, by Mathey. .20 

"§!. Tom Brown s School 'Days 20 


62. The Wooing Q’t, by Mrs. Alex- 

ander Parti • 15 

The Wooing O’t, Part'll 15 

63. Thp Vendetta, by Balzac .' ,20 

. 64. Hypatia, by C has. Kingsley ,P’t 1. 15 

Hypatia, by Kingsley, Part II — 15 

65. Selma, by Mrs. J. G. Smith 15 

66. Margaret and her Bridesmaids. .20 

67. Horse Shoe Robinson, Parti.... 15 
Horse Shoe Robinson, Part II ... 1 5 

68. Gulliver's Travels, by Swift 20 

' 69. Amos Barton, by George Eliot... 10 

70. The Berber, by W E. Mayo 20 

71. Silas Marner, by George Eliot. . .10 

72. The Queen of the County 20 

73. Life of Cromwell, by Hood... 15 \ 

74. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. 20 ; 

75. Child’s History of England. ..... 20 \ 

76. Molly Bawn, by The Duchess. . .20 j 

77. Pi! hue, by William- Bergsfie 16 ! 

78. Phyllis, by The Duchess 20 * 

79. Romo! a, by Geo. Eliot, Part I. .>15 
Romola, by Geo. Eliot, Parfcll. .15 

80. Science in Short Chapters 20 

61. 2anoni, by Lord Lytton. 20 

82. A Daughter of Heth.. . 20 

83. The Right and Wrong Decs of 

the Bible, R. Heber Newton. . .20 

84. Night and Morning, Pt. 1 15 

Night and Morning, Part II 15 

85. Shandon Bells, by Win, Black. .20 

85. Monica, by the Duchess 10 

87. Heart and'Science, by Collins.. . 20 
83. The Golden Calf, by Braddon. . .20 

89. The Dean’s Daughter., 20 

90. Mrs. Geoffrey, by The Duchess. .20 

91. Pickwick Papers, Part I.. .... .20 

Pickv/i ck Parsers, Part II 20 

95. Airy, Fairy Lilian, The Duchess . 20 

93. McLeod of Dare, by Wm. Black. 20 

94. Tempest Tossed, by Tilton. P’tl 20 
Tempest Tossed, by Tilton, P’t II 20 

95. Letters from High Latitudes, by 

Lord Dufferin , , 20 

96 Gideon Fleyce, by Lucy.. 20 

97. India and Ceylon, by E. Haeckel. .20 

98. The Gypsy Queen ,20 

99. The Admiral’s Ward 20 

100. N import, by E. L,, Bynner, F’.t I . .15 
Nimport, byE. L. Bynner, P’t II. 15 

101. Harry Holbrooke ....' ,20 

102. Tritons, by E. L. Bynner, P’tl. .. 15 
Tritons, by K. L: Bynner, P’t II • 2$ 

103. Let Nothing You Dir may, by 

Walter Besant ... 10 

104. Lady AudievTs Secret, >y Miss 

M . E. Braimon . '30 

105. Woman’s Place To-day. by Mrs. 

Lillie Deverenx Blake 20 

106. Dunalian, by Kennedy, Parti. . .15 
Dunallan, by Kennedy, Part. II. .15 

107. Housekee/ ; Mt and Home- mak- 

ing, by Mi irmn Hat 3 and 25 

208, No New Thing, by W. E. Norris ,20 

109. The Spoopendyka Papers 20 

23 0 False Hopes, by Gold win Smith .1 

111. Labor and Capital *7 

112. War da, by Oaida, Parti lb 

Wanda, by Ouida. Partll | 


SKETCHES 


AND 


TRAVELS IN LONDON 


BY 

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERY. 


NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
14 and 16 Vesey Street. 



SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


good show in your book-cases ; and I was glad to remark in the 
looking-glass the cards of both our excellent county Members. 
The rooms, altogether, have a reputable appearance; and I 
hope, my dear fellow, that the Society of the Inner Temple will 
have a punctual tenant. 

As you have now completed your academical studies, and 
are about to commence your career in London, I propose, my 
dear Nephew, to give you a few hints for your guidance ; which, 
although you have an undoubted genius of your own, yet come 
from a person who has had considerable personal experience, 
and, I have no doubt, would be useful to you if you did not dis- 
regard them, as, indeed, you will most probably do. 

With your law studies it is not my duty to meddle. I have 
seen you established, one of six pupils, in Mr. Tapeworm’s 
chambers in Pump Court, seated on a high-legged stool on a 
foggy day, with your back to a blazing fire. At your father’s 
desire, I have paid a hundred guineas to that eminent special 
pleader, for the advantages which I have no doubt you will en- 
joy, while seated on the high-legged stool in his back room, and 
rest contented with your mother’s prediction that you will be 
Lord Chief Justice some day. May you prosper, my dear fel- 
low ! is all I desire. By the way, I should like to know what 
was the meaning of a pot of porter which entered into your 
chambers as I issued from them at one o’clock, and trust that it 
was not your thirst which was to be quenched with such a bever- 
age at such an hour. 

It is not, then, with regard to your duties as_a law-student 
that I have a desire to lecture you, but in respect of your pleas- 
ures, amusements, acquaintances, and general conduct and 
bearing as a young man of the world. 

I will rush into the subject at once, and exemplify my 
morality in your own person. Why, sir, for instance, do you 
wear that tuft to your chin, and those sham turquoise buttons to 
your waistcoat ? A chin-tuft is a cheap enjoyment certainly, 
and the twiddling it about, as 1 see you do constantly, so as to 
show your lower teeth, a harmless amusement to fill up your 
vacuous hours. And as for waistcoat buttons, you will say, 
“ Do not all the young men wear them, and what can I do but 
buy artificial turquoise, as I cannot afford to buy real stones ? ” 

I take you up at once and show you why you ought to shave 
off your tip and give up the factitious jewelry. My dear Bob, 
in spite of us and all the Republicans in the world, there are 
ranks and degrees in life and society, and distinctions to be 
maintained by each man according to his rank and degree. 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


397 

You have no more right, as I take it, to sport an imperial on 
your chin than I have to wear a shovel-hat with a rosette. I 
hold a tuft to a man’s chin to be the centre of a system, so to 
speak, which ought all to correspond and be harmonious — the 
whole tune of a man’s life ought to be played in that key. 

Look, for instance, at Lord Hugo Fitzurse seated in the 
private box at the Lyceum, by the side of that beautiful 
creature with the black eyes and the magnificent point-lace, who 
you fancied was ogling you through her enormous spy-glasses. 
Lord Hugo has a tuft to his chin, certainly, his countenance 
grins with a perfect vacuity behind it, and his whiskers curl 
crisply round one of the handsomest and stupidest countenances 
in the world. 

But just reckon up in your own mind what it costs him to 
keep up that simple ornament on his chin. Look at every 
article of that amiable and most gentlemanlike — though, I own, 
foolish — young man’s dress, and see how absurd it is of you to 
attempt to imitate him. Look at his hands (I have the young 
nobleman perfectly before my mind’s eye now) ; the little hands 
are dangling over the cushion of the box gloved as tightly and 
delicately as a lady’s. His wristbands are fastened up towards 
his elbows with jewelry. Gems and rubies meander down his 
pink shirt-front and waistcoat. He wears a watch with an 
apparatus of gimcracks at his waistcoat-pocket. He sits in 
a splendid side-box, or he simpers out of the windows at 
“ White’s,” or you see him grinning out of a cab by the Serpen- 
tine — a lovely and costly picture, surrounded by a costly frame. 

Whereas you and I, my good Bob, if we want to see a play, 
do not disdain an order from our friend the newspaper Editor, 
or to take a seat in the pit. Your watch is your father’s old 
hunting-watch. When we go in the Park we go on foot, or at 
best get a horse up after Easter, and just show in Rotten Row. 
We shall never look out of “ White’s ” bow-window. The 
amount of Lord Hugo’s tailor’s bill would support you and your 
younger brother. His valet has as good an allowance as you, 
besides his perquisites of old clothes. You cannot afford to 
wear a dandy lord’s cast-off old clothes, neither to imitate those 
which he wears. 

There is nothing disagreeable to me in the notion of a 
-dandy any more than there is in the idea of a peacock, or a 
camelopard, or a prodigious gaudy tulip, or an astonishingly 
bright brocade. There are all sorts of animals, plants, and 
stuffs in Nature, from peacocks to tom-tits, and from cloth-of- 
£old to corduroy, whereof the variety is assuredly intended by 


398 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

Nature, and certainly adds to the zest of life. Therefore, I do 
not say that Lord Hugo is a useless being, or bestow the least 
contempt upon him. Nay, it is right gratifying and natural that 
he should be, and be as he is — handsome and graceful, splen- 
did and perfumed, beautiful — whiskered and empty-headed, a 
sumptuous dandy and man of fashion — and what you young 
men have denominated “ A Swell.’’ 

But a cheap Swell, my dear Robert (and that little chin 
ornament, as well as certain other indications which I have 
remarked in your simple nature, lead me to insist upon this 
matter rather strongly with you), is by no means a pleasing 
object for our observation, although he is presented to us so 
frequently. Try, my boy, and curb any little propensity which 
you may have to dresses that are too splendid for your station. 
You do not want light kid-gloves and wristbands up to your 
elbows, copying out Mr. Tapeworm’s Pleas and Declarations ; 
you will only blot them with lawyers’ ink over your desk, and 
they will impede your writing : whereas Lord Hugo may deco- 
rate his hands in any way he likes, because he has little else to 
do with them but to drive cabs, or applaud dancing-girls’ 
pirouettes, or to handle a knife and fork or a tooth-pick as be- 
comes the position in life which he fills in so distinguished a 
manner. To be sure, since the days of friend H£sop, Jackdaws 
have been held up to ridicule for wearing the plumes of birds to 
whom Nature has affixed more gaudy tails ; but as Folly is 
constantly reproducing itself, so must Satire, and our honest 
Mr . Punch has but to repeat to the men of our generation the 
lessons taught by the good-natured Hunchback his predecessor. 

Shave off your tuft, then, my boy, and send it to the girl of 
your heart as a token, if you like ; and I pray you abolish the 
jewelry, towards which I clearly see you have a propensity. 
As you have a plain dinner at home, served comfortably on a 
clean table-cloth, and not a grand service of half a dozen entrees , 
such as we get at our county Member’s (and an uncommonly 
good dinner it is too), so let your dress be perfectly neat, polite, 
and cleanly, without any attempts at splendor. Magnificence 
is the decency of the rich — but it cannot be purchased with half 
a guinea a day, which, when the rent of your chambers is paid, 
I take to be pretty nearly the amount of your worship’s income. 
This point, I thought, was rather well illustrated the other day, 
in an otherwise silly and sentimental book which I looked over 
at the Club, called the “ Foggarty Diamond ” (or some such 
vulgar name). Somebody gives the hero, who is a poor fellow, 
a diamond pin : he is obliged to buy a new stock to set off the 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


399 


diamond, then a new waistcoat, to correspond with the stock, 
then a new coat, because the old one is too shabby for the rest 
of his attire ; — finally, the poor devil is ruined by the diamond 
ornament, which he is forced to sell, as I would recommend 
you to sell your waistcoat studs, were they worth anything. 

But as you have a good figure and a gentlemanlike deport- 
ment, and as every young man likes to be well attired, and 
ought, for the sake of his own advantage and progress in life, 
to show himself to the best advantage, I shall take an early 
opportunity of addressing you on the subject of tailors and 
clothes, which at least merit a letter to themselves. 


ON TAILORING— AND TOILETTES IN GENERAL. 

Our ancestors, my dear Bob, have transmitted to you (as 
well as every member of our family) considerable charms of 
person and figure, of which fact, although you are of course 
perfectly aware, yet, and equally of course, you have no objec- 
tion to be reminded ; and with these facial and corporeal en- 
dowments, a few words respecting dress and tailoring may not 
be out of place ; for nothing is trivial in life, and everything to 
the philosopher has a meaning. As in the old joke about a 
pudding which has two sides, namely an inside and an outside, 
so a coat or a hat has its inside as well as its outside ; I mean, 
that there is in a man’s exterior appearance the consequence 
of his inward ways of thought, and a gentleman who dresses 
too grandly, or too absurdly, or too shabbily, has some oddity, 
or insanity, or meanness in his mind, which develops itself 
somehow outwardly in the fashion of his garments. 

No man has a right to despise his dress in this world. 
There is no use in flinging any honest chance whatever away. 
For instance, although a woman cannot be expected to know 
the particulars of a gentleman’s dress, any more than we be 
acquainted with the precise nomenclature or proper cut of the 
various articles which those dear creatures wear, yet to what 
lady in a society of strangers do we feel ourselves most naturally 
inclined to address ourselves ? — to her or those whose appear- 
ance pleases us ; not to the gaudy, overdressed Dowager or 
Miss — nor to her whose clothes, though handsome, are put on 
in a slatternly manner, but to the person who looks neat, and 


400 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


trim, and elegant, and in whose person we fancy we see exhib- 
ited indications of a natural taste, order, and propriety. If 
Miss Smith in a rumpled gown offends our eyesight, though we 
hear she is a young lady of great genius and considerable for- 
tune, while Miss Jones in her trim and simple attire attracts 
our admiration ; so must women, on their side, be attracted or 
repelled by the appearance of gentlemen into whose company 
they fall. If you are a tiger in appearance, you may naturally 
expect to frighten a delicate and timid female ; if you are a 
sloven, to offend her : and as to be well with women, constitutes 
one of the chiefest happinesses of life, the object of my worthy 
Bob’s special attention will naturally be, to neglect no precau- 
tions to win their favor. 

Yes : a good face, a good address, a good dress, are each 
so many points in the game of life, of which every man of sense 
will avail himself. They help many a man more in his com- 
merce with society than learning or genius. It is hard often to 
bring the former into a drawing-room : it is often too lumber- 
ing and unwieldy for any den but his own. And as a King 
Charles’s spaniel can snooze before the fire, or frisk over the 
ottoman-cushions and on the ladies’ laps, when a Royal elephant 
would find a considerable difficulty in walking up the stairs, 
and subsequently in finding a seat ; so a good manner and ap- 
pearance will introduce you into many a house, where you might 
knock in vain for admission, with all the learning of Porson in 
your trunk. 

It is not learning, it is not virtue, about which people in- 
quire in society. It is manners, ft no more profits me that 
my neighbor at table can construe Sanscrit and say the 
“ Encyclopaedia ” by heart, than that he' should possess half a 
million in the Bank (unless, indeed, he gives dinners; when, 
for reasons obvious, one’s estimation of him, or one’s desire to 
please him, takes its rise in different sources), or that the lady 
whom I hand down to dinner should be as virtuous as Cornelia 
or the late Mrs. Hannah More. What is wanted for the nonce 
is, that folks should be as agreeable. as possible in conversation 
and demeanor ; so that good-humor may be said to be one of 
the very best articles of dress one can wear in society; the 
which to see exhibited in Lady X.’s honest face, let us say, is 
more pleasant to behold in a room than the glitter of Lady Z.’s 
best diamonds. And yet, in point of virtue, the latter is, no 
doubt, a perfect dragon. But virtue is a home quality : manners 
are the coat it wears when it goes abroad. 

Thus, then, my beloved Bob, I would have your dining-out 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


401 

suit handsome, neat, well-made, fitting you naturally and easily, 
and yet with a certain air of holiday about it, which should 
mark its destination. It is not because they thought their ap- 
pearance was much improved by the ornament, that the ancient 
philosophers and topers decorated their old pates with flowers 
(no wreath, I know, would make some people’s mugs beautiful ; 
and I confess, for my part, I would as lief wear a horse-collar 
or a cotton night cap in society as a coronet of polyanthuses or 
a garland of hyacinths) : — it is not because a philosopher cares 
about dress that he wears it ; but he wears his best as a sign 
of a feast, as a bush is the sign of an inn. You ought to mark 
a festival as a red-letter day, and you put on your broad and 
spotless white waistcoat, your finest linen, your shiniest boots, 
as much as to say, “ It is a feast ; here I am, clean, smart, 
ready with a good appetite, determined to enjoy.” 

You would not enjoy a feast if you came to it unshorn, in a 
draggle-tailed dressing-gown. You ought to be well dressed, 
and suitable to it. A very odd and wise man whom I once 
knew, and who had not (as far as one could outwardly judge) 
the least vanity about his personal appearance, used, I remem- 
ber, to make a point of wearing in large Assemblies a most 
splendid gold or crimson waistcoat. He seemed to consider 
himself in the light of a walking bouquet of flowers, or a mova- 
ble chandelier. His waistcoat was a piece of furniture to 
decorate the rooms : as for any personal pride he took in the 
adornment, he had none : for the matter of that, he would have 
taken the garment off, and lent it to a waiter — but this Philos- 
opher’s maxim was, that dress should be handsome upon hand- 
some occasions — and I hope you will exhibit your own taste 
upon such. You don’t suppose that people who entertain you 
so hospitably have four-and-twenty lights in the dining-room, 
and still and dry champagne everyday? — or that my friend, 
Mrs. Perkins, puts her drawing-room door under her bed every 
night, when there is no ball ? A young fellow must dress him- 
self, as the host and hostess dress themselves, in an extra 
manner for extra nights. Enjoy, my boy, in honesty and man- 
liness, the goods of this life. I would no more have you refuse 
to take your glass of wine, or to admire (always in honesty) a 
pretty girl, than dislike the smell of a rose, or turn away your 
eyes from a landscape. “ Neque tu choreas sperne, pner” as the 
dear old Heathen says ; and, in order to dance, you must have 
proper pumps willing to spring and whirl lightly, and a clean 
pair of gloves, with which you can take your partner’s pretty 
little hand. 


26 


402 


SKETCHES A HD TEA EELS IN LONDON. 


As for particularizing your dress, that were a task quite 
absurd and impertinent, considering that you are to wear it, and 
not I, and remembering the variations of fashion. When I was 
presented to H. R. H. the Prince Regent, in the uniform of the 
Hammersmith Hussars, viz. : a yellow jacket, pink pantaloons, 
and silver lace, green morocco boots, and a light-blue pelisse 
lined with ermine, the august Prince himself, the model of grace 
and elegance in his time, wore a coat of which the waist- buttons 
were placed between his royal shoulder-blades, and which, if 
worn by a man now, would cause the boys to hoot him in Pall 
Mall, and be a uniform for Bedlam. If buttons continue their 
present downward progress, a man’s waist may fall down to his 
heels next year, or work upwards to the nape of his neck after 
another revolution : who knows ? Be it yours decently to con- 
form to the custom, and leave your buttons in the hands of a 
good tailor, who will place them wherever fashion ordains. A 
few general rules, however, may be gently hinted to a young 
fellow who has perhaps a propensity to fall into certain errors. 

Eschew violent sporting-dresses, such as one sees but too 
often in the parks and public places on the backs of misguided 
young men. There is no objection to an ostler wearing a par- 
ticular costume, but it is a pity that a gentleman should imitate 
it. I have seen in like manner young fellows at Cowes attired 
like the pictures we have of smugglers, buccaneers, and mari- 
ners in Adelphi melodramas. I would like my Bob to remem- 
ber, that his business in life is neither to handle a currycomb 
nor a marlin-spike, and to fashion his habit accordingly. 

If your hair or clothes do not smell of tobacco, as they some- 
times, it must be confessed, do, you will not be less popular 
among the ladies. And as no man is worth a fig, or can have 
real benevolence of character, or observe mankind properly, 
who does not like the society of modest and well-bred women, 
respect their prejudices in this matter, and if you must smoke, 
smoke in an old coat, and away from the ladies. 

Avoid dressing-gowns ; which argue dawdling, an unshorn 
chin, a lax toilet, and a general lazy and indolent habit at home. 
Begin your day with a clean conscience in every way. Clean- 
liness is honesty.* A man who shows but a clean face and 
hands is a rogue and hypocrite in society, and takes credit for 
a virtue which he does not possess. And of all the advances 
towards civilization which our nation has made, and of most of 

* Note to the beloved Reader . — This hint, dear Sir, is of course not intended to apply 
personally to you, who are scrupulously neat in your person ; but when you look around you 
and see how many people neglect the use of that admirable cosmetic, cold water, you will 
aee that a few words in its praise may be spoken with advantage. 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


4 03 


which Mr. Macaulay treats so eloquently in his lately published 
History, as in his lecture to the Glasgow Students the other 
day, there is none which ought to give a philanthropist more 
pleasure than to remark the great and increasing demand for 
bath-tubs at the ironmongers’ : Zinc-Institutions, of which our 
ancestors had a lamentable ignorance. 

And I hope that these institutions will be universal in our 
country before long, and that every decent man in England will 
be a Companion of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath. 


THE INFLUENCE OF LOVELY WOMAN UPON 
SOCIETY. 

Constantly, my dear Bob, I have told you how refining is 
the influence of women upon society, and how profound our 
respect ought to be for them. Living in chambers as you do, 
my dear Nephew, and not of course liable to be amused by the 
constant society of an old uncle, who moreover might be 
deucedly bored with your own conversation — I beseech and im- 
plore you to make a point of being intimate with one or two 
families where you can see kind and well-bred English ladies. 
I have seen women of all nations in the world, but I never saw 
the equals of English women (meaning of course to include our 
cousins the Mac Whirters of Glasgow, and the O’Tooles of 
Cork) : and I pray sincerely, my boy, that you may always have 
a woman for a friend. 

Try, then, and make yourself the bienvenu in some house 
where accomplished and amiable ladies are. Pass as much of 
your time as you can with them. Lose no opportunity of mak- 
ing yourself agreeable to them : run their errands ; send them 
flowers and elegant little tokens ; show a willingness to be 
pleased by their attentions, and to aid their little charming 
schemes of shopping or dancing, or this, or that. I say to you, 
make yourself a lady’s man as much as ever you can. 

It is better for you to pass an evening once or twice a week 
in a lady’s drawing-room, even though the conversation is rather 
slow and you know the girls’ songs by heart, than in a club, 
tavern, or smoking-room, or a pit of a theatre. All amusements 
of youth, to which virtuous women are not admitted, are, rely 
on it, deleterious in their nature. All men who avoid female 
society, have dull perceptions and are stupid, or have gross 


404 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. 


tastes and revolt against what is pure. Your Club swaggerers 
who are sucking the butts of billiard-cues all night call female 
society insipid. Sir, poetry is insipid to a yokel ; beauty has 
no charms for a blind man : music does not please an unfor- 
tunate brute who does not know one tune from another — and 
as a true epicure is hardly ever tired of water-souchy and brown 
bread and butter, I protest I can sit for a whole night talking 
to a well-regulated kindly woman about her girl coming out, or 
her boy at Eaton, and like the evening’s entertainment. 

One of the great benefits a young man may derive from 
women’s society is, that he is bound to be respectful to them. 
The habit is of great good to your moral man, depend on it. 
Our education makes of us the most eminently selfish men in 
the world. We fight for ourselves, we push for ourselves ; 
we cut the best slices out of the joint at club-dinners for our- 
selves ; we yawn for ourselves and light our pipes, and say we 
won’t go out : we prefer ourselves and our ease — and the great- 
est good that comes to a man from woman’s society is, that he 
has to think of somebody besides himself — somebody to whom 
he is bound to be constantly attentive and respectful. Certainly 
I don’t want my dear Bob to associate with those of the other 
sex whom he doesn’t and can’t respect : that is worse than bil- 
liards ; worse than tavern brandy-and-water : wwse than smok- 
ing selfishness at home. But I vow I would rather see you 
turning over the leaves of Miss Fiddlecombe’s music-book all 
night, than at billiards, or smoking, or brandy-and-water, or all 
three. 

Remember, if a house is pleasant, and you like to remain in 
it, that to be well with the women of the house is the great, the 
vital point. If it is a good house, don’t turn up your nose be- 
cause you are only asked to come in the evening while others 
are invited to dine. Recollect the debts of dinners which a 
hospitable family has to pay ; who are you that you should 
always be expecting to nestle under the mahogany ? Agreeable 
acquaintances are made just as well in the drawing-room as in 
the dining-room. Go to tea brisk and good-humored. Be de- 
termined to be pleased. Talk to a dowager. Take a hand at 
whist. If you are musical, and know a song, sing it like a man. 
Never sulk about dancing, but off with you. You will find 
your acquaintance enlarge. Mothers, pleased with your good- 
humor, will probably ask you to Pocklington Square, to a little 
party. You will get on — you will form yourself a circle. You 
may marry a rich girl, or, at any rate, get the chance of seeing 
a number of the kind and the pretty, 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


405 


Many young men, who are more remarkable for their impu- 
dence and selfishness than their good sense, are fond of boast- 
fully announcing that they decline going to evening-parties at 
all, unless, indeed, such entertainments commence with a good 
dinner, and a quantity of claret. 

I never saw my beautiful-minded friend, Mrs. Y. Z., many 
times out of temper, but can quite pardon her indignation when 
young Fred Noodle, to whom the Y. Z.’s have been very kind, 
and who has appeared scores of times at their elegant table in 
Up — r B-k-r Street, announced, in an unlucky moment of flip- 
pancy, that he did not intend to go to evening-parties any 
more. 

What induced Fred Noodle to utter this bravado I know 
•not ; whether it was that he has been puffed up by attentions 
from several Aldermen’s families, with whom he has of late 
become acquainted, and among whom he gives himself the airs 
of a prodigious “ swell ; ” but having made this speech one Sun- 
day after Church, when he condescended to call in B-k-r 
Street, and show off his new gloves and waistcoat, and talked 
in a sufficiently dandified air about the opera (the wretched 
creature fancies that an eight-and-sixpenny pit ticket gives him 
the privileges of a man of fashion) — Noodle made his bow to 
the ladies, and strutted off to show his new yellow kids else- 
where. 

“ Matilda my love, bring the Address Book,” Mrs. Y. Z. 
said to her lovely eldest daughter as soon as Noodle was gone, 
and the banging hall-door had closed upon the absurd youth. 
That graceful and obedient girl rose, went to the back drawing- 
room, on a table in which apartment the volume lay, and 
brought the book to her mamma. 

Mrs. Y. Z. turned to the letter N ; and under that initial 
discovered the name of the young fellow who had just gone out. 
Noodle F., 250 Jermyn Street, St. James’s. She took a pen 
from the table before her, and with it deliberately crossed the 
name of Mr. Noodle out of her book. Matilda looked at Eliza, 
who stood by in silent awe. The sweet eldest girl, who has a 
kind feeling towards every soul alive, then looked towards her 
mother with expostulating eyes, and said, “ Oh, mamma ! ” 
Dear, dear Eliza ! I love all pitiful hearts like thine. 

But Mrs. Y. Z. was in no mood to be merciful, and gave 
way to a natural indignation and feeling of outraged justice. 

“ What business has that young man to tell me,” she ex- 
claimed, “ that he declines going to evening-parties, when he 
knows that after Easter we have one or two ? Has he not met 


406 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

with constant hospitality here since Mr. Y. Z. brought him 
home from the Club ? Has he such beaux yeux ? or, has he so 
much wit ? or, is he a man of so much note, that his company 
at a dinner-table becomes indispensable ? He is nobody ; he is 
not handsome ; he is not clever ; he never opens his mouth ex- 
cept to drink your Papa’s claret ; and he declines evening-par- 
ties forsooth ! — Mind, children, he is never invited into this 
house again.” 

When Y. Z. now meets young Noodle at the Club, that 
kind, but feeble-minded old gentleman covers up his face with 
the newspaper, so as not to be seen by Noodle ; or sidles away 
with his face to the book-cases, and lurks off by the door. The 
other day, they met on the steps, when the wretched Noodle, 
driven aux abois, actually had the meanness to ask how Mr§. 
Y. Z. was ? The Colonel (for such he is, and of the Bombay 
service, too) “ said, — My wife ? Oh ! — hum ! — I’m sorry to say 
Mrs. Y. Z. has been very poorly' indeed, lately, very poorly ; 
and confined to her room. God bless my soul f I’ve an 
appointment at the India House, and it’s past two o’clock ” — 
and he fled. 

I had the malicious satisfaction of describing to Noodle the 
most sumptuous dinner which Y. Z. had given the day before, 
at which there was a Lord present, a Foreign Minister with his 
Orders, two Generals with Stars, and every luxury of the season ; 
but at the end of our conversation, seeing the effect, it had upon 
the poor youth, and how miserably he was cast down, I told 
him the truth, viz., that the above story was a hoax, and that if 
he wanted to get into Mrs. Y. Z.’s good graces again, his best 
plan was to go to Lady Flack’s party, where I knew the Miss 
Y. Z.’s would be, and dance with them all night. 

Yes, my dear Bob, you boys must pay with your persons, 
however lazy you may be — however much inclined to smoke at 
the Club, or to lie there and read the last delicious new novel ; 
or averse to going home to a dreadful black set of chambers, 
where there is no fire ; and at ten o’clock at night creeping 
shuddering into your ball suit, in order to go forth to an even- 
ing-party. 

The dressing, the clean gloves, and cab-hire are nuisances, 
I grant you. The idea of a party itself is a bore, but you must 
go. When you are at the party, it is not so stupid ; there is 
always something pleasant for the eye and attention of an ob- 
servant man. There is a bustling Dowager wheedling and 
manoeuvring to get proper partners for her girls ; there is a 
pretty girl enjoying herself with all her heart, and in all the 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 407 

pricle of her beauty, than which I know no more charming o!> 
ject ; — there is poor Miss Meggot, lonely up against the wall, 
whom nobody asks to dance, and with whom it is your bounden 
duty to waltz. There is always something to see or do, when 
you are there ; and to evening-parties, I say, you must go. 

Perhaps I speak with the ease of an old fellow who is out 
of the business, and beholds you from afar off. My dear boy, 
they don’t want us at evening-parties. A stout, bald-headed 
man dancing, is a melancholy object to himself in the looking- 
glass opposite, and there are duties and pleasures of all ages. 
Once, heaven help us, and only once, upon my honor, and I say 
so as a gentleman, some boys seized upon me and carried me 
to the Casino, where, forthwith, they found acquaintances and 
partners, and went whirling away in the double-timed waltz (it 
is an abominable dance to me — I am an old fogy) along with 
hundreds more. I caught sight of a face in the crowd — the 
most blank, melancholy, and dreary old visage it was — my own 
face in the glass — there was no use in my being there. Canities 
adest morosa — no, not morosa — but, in fine, I had no business 
in the place, and so came away. 

I saw enough of that Casino, however, to show to me that — 
but my paper is full, and on the subject of women I have more 
things to say, which might fill many hundred more pages. 


SOME MORE WORDS ABOUT THE LADIES. 

Suffer me to continue, my dear Bob, our remarks about 
women, and their influence over you young fellows — an in- 
fluence so vast, for good or for evil. 

I have, as you pretty well know, an immense sum of money 
in the Three per Cents., the possession of which does not, I 
think, decrease your respect for my character, and of which, at 
my demise, you will possibly have your share. But if I ever 
hear of you as a Casino haunter, as a frequenter of Races and 
Greenwich Fairs, and such amusements, in questionable com- 
pany, I give you my honor you shall benefit by no legacy of 
mine, and. I will divide the portion that was, and is, I hope, to 
be yours, amongst your sisters. 

Think, sir, of what they are, and of your mother at home, 
spotless and pious, loving and pure, and shape your own course 


*o8 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

so as to be worthy of them. Would you do anything to give 
them pain ? Would you say anything that should bring a blush 
to their fair cheeks, or shock their gentle natures ? At the 
Royal Academy Exhibition last year, when the great stupid, 
dandified donkey, Captain Grigg, in company with the other 
vulgar oat, Mr. Gowker, ventured to stare, in rather an insolent 
manner, at your pretty little sister Fanny, who had come blush- 
ing from Miss Pinkerton’s Academy, I saw how your honest face 
flushed up with indignation, as you caught a sight of the hideous 
grins and ogles of those two ruffians in varnished boots ; and 
your eyes flashed out at them glances of defiance and warning 
so savage and terrible, that the discomfited wretches turned 
wisely upon their heels, and did not care to face such a resolute 
young champion as Bob Brown. What is it that makes all your 
blood tingle, and fills all your heart with a vague and fierce 
desire to thrash somebody, when the idea of the possibility of 
an insult to that fair creature enters your mind ? You can’t 
bear to think that injury should be done to a being so sacred, 
so innocent, and so defenceless. You would do battle with a 
Goliath in her cause. Your sword would leap from its scab- 
bard (that is, if you gentlemen from Pump Court wore swords 
and scabbards at the present period of time,) to avenge or de- 
fend her. 

Respect all beauty, all innocence, my dear Bob ; defend all 
defencelessness in your sister, as in the sisters of other men. 
We have all heard the story of the Gentleman of the last cen- 
tury, who, when a crowd of young bucks and bloods in the 
Crush-room of the Opera were laughing and elbowing an old 
lady there — an old lady, lonely, ugly, and unprotected — went up 
to her respectfully and offered her his arm, took her down to 
his own carriage which was in waiting, and walked home him- 
self in the rain, — and twenty years afterwards had ten thousand 
a year left him by this very old lady, as a reward for that one 
act of politeness. We have all heard that story ; nor do I 
think it is probable that you will have ten thousand a year left 
to you for being polite to a woman : but I say, be polite, at any 
rate. Be respectful to every woman. A manly and generous 
heart can be no otherwise ; as a man would be gentle with a 
child, or take off his hat in a church. 

I would have you apply this principle universally towards 
women — from the finest lady of your acquaintance down to the 
laundress who sets your Chambers in order. It may safely be 
asserted that the persons who joke with servants or barmaids 
at lodgings are not men of a high intellectual or moral capa- 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


40c) 

city. To chuck a still-room maid under the chin, or to send off 
Molly the cook grinning, are not, to say the least of them, dig- 
nified acts in any gentleman. The butcher-boy who brings the 
leg of mutton to Molly, may converse with her over the area- 
railings ; or the youthful grocer may exchange a few jocular re- 
marks with Betty at the door as he hands in to her the tea and 
sugar ; but not you. We must live according to our degree. 
I hint this to you, sir, by the way,’ and because the other night, 
as I was standing on the drawing-room landing place, taking 
leave of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax, after a very agree- 
able dinner, I heard a giggling in the hall, where you were 
putting on your coat, and where that uncommonly good-looking 
parlor-maid was opening the door. And here, whilst on this 
subject, and whilst Mrs. Betty is helping you on with your coat, 
I would say, respecting your commerce with friends’ servants 
and your own, be thankful to them, and they will be grateful 
to you in return, depend upon it. Let the young fellow who 
lives in lodgings respect the poor little maid who does the 
wondrous work of the house, and not send her on too many 
errands, or ply his bell needlessly : if you visit any of your 
comrades in such circumstances, be you, too, respectful and 
kind in your tone to the poor little Abigail. If you frequent 
houses, as I hope you will, where are many good fellows and 
amiable ladies who cannot afford to have their doors opened or 
their tables attended to by men, pray be particularly courteous 
(though by no means so marked in your attentions as on the 
occasion of the dinner at Mr. Fairfax’s to which I have just 
alluded) to the women servants. Thank them when they serve 
you. Give them a half-crown now and then — nay, as often as 
your means will permit. Those small gratuities make but a 
small sum in your year’s expenses, and it may be said that the 
practice of giving them never impoverished a man yet : and, 
on the other hand, they give a deal of innocent happiness to 
a. very worthy, active, kind set of folks. 

But let us hasten from the hall-door to the drawing-room, 
where Fortune has cast your lot in life : I want to explain to 
you why I am so anxious that you should devote yourself to 
that amiable lady who sits in it. Sir, I do not mean to tell you 
that there are no women in the world vulgar and ill-humored, 
rancorous and narrow-minded, mean schemers, son-in-law hun- 
ters, slaves of fashion, hypocrites; but I do respect, admire, 
and almost worship good women ; and I think there is a very 
fair number of such to be found in this world, and I have no 
doubt, in every educated Englishman’s circle of society, whether 


4io 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


he finds that circle in palaces in Belgravia and May Fair, in 
snug little suburban villas, in ancient comfortable old Blooms- 
bury, or in back parlors behind the shop. It has been my for- 
tune to meet with excellent English ladies in every one of these 
places — wives graceful and affectionate, matrons tender and 
good, daughters happy and pure-minded, and I urge the society 
of such on you, because I defy you to think evil in their com- 
pany. Walk into the drawing-room of Lady Z., that great lady : 
look at her charming face, and hear her voice. You know that 
she can’t but be good, with such a face and such a voice. She 
is one of those fortunate beings on whom it has pleased heaven 
to bestow all sorts of its most precious gifts and richest worldly 
favors. With what grace she receives you ; with what a frank 
kindness and natural sweetness and dignity ! Her looks, her 
motions, her words, her thoughts, all seem to be beautiful and 
harmonious quite. See her with her children, what woman can 
be more simple and loving ? After you have talked to her for 
a while, you very likely find that she is ten times as well read 
as you are : she has a hundred accomplishments which she is 
not in the least anxious to show off, and makes no more ac- 
count of them than of her diamonds, or of the splendor round 
about her — to all of which she is born, and has a happy, admi- 
rable claim of nature and possession — admirable and happy for 
her and for us too ; for is it not a happiness for us to admire 
her? Does anybody grudge her excellence to that paragon? 
Sir, we may be thankful to be admitted to contemplate such con- 
summate goodness and beauty : and as in looking at a fine land- 
scape or a fine work of art, every generous heart must be 
delighted and improved, and ought to feel grateful afterwards, 
so one may feel charmed and thankful for having the opportu- 
nity of knowing an almost perfect woman. Madam, if the gout 
and the custom of the world permitted, I would kneel down and 
kiss the hem of your ladyship’s robe. To see your gracious face 
is a comfort — to see you walk to your carriage is a holiday. 
Drive her faithfully. O thou silver-wigged coachman 1 drive to 
all sorts of splendors and honors and royal festivals. And for 
us, let us be glad that we should have the privilege to admire 
her. 

Now, transport yourself in spirit, my good Bob, into another 
drawing-room. There sits an old lady of more than fourscore 
years, serene and kind, and as beautiful in her age now as in 
her youth, when History toasted her. What has she not seen, 
and what is she not ready to tell ? All the fame and wit, all 
the rank and beauty, of more than half a century, have passed 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 

through those rooms where you have the honor of making 
best bow. She is as simple now as if she had never had any 
flattery to dazzle her : she is never tired of being pleased 
being kind. Can that have been anything but a good life 
which, after more than eighty years of it are spent, is so a m 
Could she look to the end of it so cheerfully, if its long course 
had not been pure ? Respect her, I say, for being so happy, 
now that she is old. We do not know what goodness and 
charity, what affections, what trials, may have gone to make 
that charming sweetness of temper, and complete that perfect 
manner. But if we do not admire and reverence such an old 
age as that, and get good from contemplating it, what are we to 
respect and admire ? 

Or shall we walk through the shop (while N. is recommend- 
ing a tall copy to an amateur, or folding up a twopennyworth 
of letter-paper, and bowing to a poor customer in a jacket and 
apron with just as much respectful gravity as he would show 
while waiting upon a Duke;) and see Mrs. N. playing with the 
child in the back parlor until N. shall come in to tea ? They 
drink tea at five o’clock ; and are actually as well bred as those 
gentlefolks who dine three hours later. Or will you please to 
step into Mrs. J.’s lodgings, who is waiting, and at work, until 
her husband comes home from Chambers ? She blushes and 
puts the work away on hearing the knock, but when she sees 
who the visitor is, she takes it with a smile from behind the 
sofa cushion, and behold it is one of J.’s waistcoats, on which 
she is sewing buttons. She might have been a Countess blaz- 
ing in diamonds, had Fate so willed it, and the higher her sta- 
tion the more she would have adorned it. But she looks as 
charming while plying her needle as the great lady in the 
palace whose equal she is, — in beauty, in goodness, in high- 
bred grace and simplicity : at least, I can’t fancy her better, or 
any Peeress being more than her peer. 

And it is with this sort of people, my dear Bob, that I rec- 
ommend you to consort, if you can be so lucky as to meet with 
their society — nor do I think you are very likely to find many 
such at the Casino ; or in the dancing-booths of Grenwich Fair 
on this present Easter Monday. 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


ON FRIENDSHIP. 

Choice of friends, my dear Robert, is a point upon which 
y man about town should be instructed, as he should be 
capful. And as example, they say, is sometimes better than 
precept, and at the risk even of appearing somewhat ludicrous 
in your eyes, I will narrate to you an adventure which happened 
to myself, which is at once ridiculous and melancholy (at least 
to me), and which will show you how a man, not imprudent or 
incautious of his own nature, may be made to suffer by the im- 
prudent selection of a friend. Attend then, my dear Bob, to 
“ the History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia/’ 

Sir, in the year 1810, I was a jolly young Bachelor, as you 
are now (indeed, it was three years before I married your poor 
dear Aunt) ; I had a place in the Tape and Sealing-Wax 
Office ; I had Chambers in Pump Court, au troisibne , and led 
a not uncomfortable life there. I was a free and gay young 
fellow in those days, (however much, sir, you may doubt the 
assertion, and think that I am changed,) and not so par- 
ticular in my choice of friends as subsequent experience has 
led me to be. 

There lived in the set of Chambers opposite to mine, a 
Suffolk gentleman, of good family, whom I shall call Mr. 
Bludyer. Our boys or clerks first made acquaintance, and did 
each other mutual kind offices : borrowing for their respective 
masters’ benefit, neither of whom was too richly provided with 
the world’s goods, coals, blacking-brushes, crockery-ware, and 
the like ; and our forks and spoons, if either of us had an en- 
tertainment in Chambers. As I learned presently that Mr. 
Bludyer had been educated at Oxford, and heard that his elder 
brother was a gentleman of good estate and reputation in his 
country, I could have no objection to make his acquaintance, 
and accepted finally his invitation to meet a large game-pie 
which he had brought with him from the country, and I recol- 
lect I lent my own silver teapot, which figured handsomely on 
the occasion. It is the same one which I presented to you, 
when you took possession of your present apartments. 

Mr. Bludyer was a sporting man : it was the custom in 
those days with many gentlemen to dress as much like coach- 
men as possible : in top-boots, huge white coats with capes, 
Belcher neckerchiefs, and the like adornments ; and at the 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


413 


tables of Bachelors of the very first fashion, you would meet 
with prize-fighters and jockeys, and hear a great deal about the 
prize-ring, the cock-pit, and the odds. I remember my Lord Til- 
bury was present at this breakfast, (who afterwards lamentably 
broke his neck in a steeple-chase, by which the noble family 
became extinct,) and for some time I confounded his lordship 
with Dutch Sam, who was also of the party, and, indeed, not 
unlike the noble Viscount in dress and manner. 

My acquaintance with Mr. Bludyer ripened into a sort of 
friendship. He was perfectly good-natured, and not ill bred ; 
and his jovial spirits and roaring stories amused a man who, 
though always of a peaceful turn, had no dislike to cheerful 
companions. We used to dine together at coffee-houses, for 
Clubs were scarcely invented in those days, except for the aris- 
tocracy ; and, in fine, were very intimate. Bludyer, a brave 
and athletic man, would often give a loose to his spirits of an 
evening, and mill a Charley or two, as the phrase then was. 
The young bloods of those days thought it was no harm to 
spend a night in the watch-house, and I assure you it has ac- 
commodated a deal of good company. Autres temps, autres 
moeurs . In our own days, my good Bob, a station-house bench 
is not the bed for a gentleman. 

I was at this time (and deservedly so, for I had been very 
kind to her, and my elder brother, your father, neglected her 
considerably) the favorite nephew of your grand-aunt, my 
aunt, Mrs. General Mac Whirter, who was left a very handsome 
fortune by the General, and to whom I do not scruple to con- 
fess I paid every attention to which her age, her sex, and her 
large income entitled her. I used to take sweetmeats to her 
poodle. I went and drank tea with her night after night. I 
accompanied her Sunday after Sunday to hear the Rev. Row- 
land Hill, at the Rotunda Chapel, over Blackfriars Bridge, and 
I used to read many of the tracts with which she liberally sup- 
plied me — in fact, do everything to comfort and console a lady 
of peculiar opinions and habits who had a large jointure. Your 
father used to say I was a sneak, but he was then a boisterous 
young squire ; and, perhaps, we were not particularly good 
friends. 

Well, sir, my dear aunt, Mrs. General Mac Whirter, made 
me her chief confidant. I regulated her money matters for 
her, and acted with her bankers and lawyers ; and as she 
always spoke of your father as a reprobate, I had every reason 
to suppose I should inherit the property, the main part of 
which passed to another branch of the Browns. I do not 


414 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


grudge it, Bob : I do not grudge it. Your family is large ; and 
I have enough from my poor dear departed wife. 

Now it so happened, that in June, 1811, — I recollect the 
Comet was blazing furiously at the time, and Mrs. Mac Whirter 
was of opinion that the world was at an end — Mr. Bludyer, who 
was having his chambers in Pump Court painted, asked per- 
mission to occupy mine, where he wished to give a lunch to 
some people whom he was desirous to entertain. Thinking no 
harm, of course I said yes ; and I went to my desk at the Tape 
and Sealing-Wax' Office at my usual hour, giving instructions to 
my boy to make Mr. Bludyer’s friends comfortable. 

As ill-luck would have it, on that accursed Friday, Mrs. Mac 
Whirter, who had never been up my staircase before in her life 
(for your dear grand-aunt was large in person, and the apoplexy 
which carried her off soon after menaced her always), having 
some very particular business with her solicitors in Middle 
Temple Lane, and being anxious to consult me about a mort- 
gage, actually mounted my stairs, and opened the door on which 
she saw written the name of Mr. Thomas Brown. She was a 
peculiar woman, I have said, attached to glaring colors in her 
dress, and from her long residence in India, seldom without a 
set of costly Birds of Paradise in her bonnet, and a splendid 
Cashmere shawl. 

Fancy her astonishment then, on entering my apartments at 
three o’clock in the afternoon, to be assailed in the first place 
by a strong smell of tobacco-smoke which pervaded the passage, 
and by a wild and ferocious bull-dog which flew at her on enter- 
ing my sitting-room. 

This bull-dog, sir, doubtless attracted by the brilliant colors 
of her costume, seized upon her, and pinned her down, scream- 
ing so that her voice drowned that of Bludyer himself, who was 
sitting on the table bellowing, “ A Southerly Wind and a Cloudy 
Sky proclaim a Hunting Morning ” — or some such ribald trash : 
and the brutal owner of the dog, (who was no other than the 
famous Mulatto boxer, Norrov, called the “ Black Prince” in 
the odious language of the Fancy, and who was inebriated 
doubtless at the moment,) encouraged his dog in the assault 
upon this defenceless lady, and laughed at the agonies which 
she endured. 

Mr. Bludyer, the black man, and one or two more were 
arranging a fight on Moulsey Hurst, when my poor aunt made 
her appearance among these vulgar wretches. Although it was 
but three o’clock, they had sent to a neighboring tavern for 
gin-and-water, and the glasses sparkled on the board, — to use z 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


4IS 

verse from a Bacchanalian song which I well remember Mr. 
Bludyer used to yell forth — when I myself arrived from my 
office at my usual hour, half-past three. The black fellow and 
young Captain Cavendish of the Guards were the smokers ; 
and it appears that at first all the gentlemen screamed with 
laughter ; some of them called my aunt an “ old girl • ” and it 
was not until she had nearly fainted that the filthy Mulatto 
called the dog off from the flounce of her yellow gown of which 
he had hold. 

When this poor victim of vulgarity asked with a scream — 
Where was her nephew ? new roars of laughter broke out from 
the coarse gin-drinkers. “ It’s the old woman whom he goes 
to meeting 'with,” cried out Bludyer. “ Come away, boys ! ” 
And he led his brutalized crew out of my chambers into his 
own, where they finished, no doubt, their arrangements about 
the fight. 

Sir, when I came home at my usual hour of half-past three, 
I found Mrs. Mac Whirter in hysterics upon my sofa — the pipes 
were lying about — the tin-dish covers — the cold kidneys — the 
tavern cruet-stands, and wretched remnants of the orgy were in 
disorder on the table-cloth, stained with beer. Seeing her faint- 
ing, I wildly bade my boy to open the window, and seizing a 
glass of water which was on the table, I presented it to her lips. 
— It was gin-and-water, which 1 proffered to that poor lady. 

She started up with a scream, which terrified me as I upset 
the glass : and with empurpled features, and a voice quivering 
and choking with anger, she vowed she would never forgive me. 
In vain I pleaded that I was ignorant of the whole of these 
disgraceful transactions. I went down on my knees to her, 
and begged her to be pacified : I called my boy, and bade him 
bear witness to my innocence : the impudent young fiend burst 
out laughing in my face, and I kicked him down stairs as soon 
as she was gone : for go she did directly to her carriage, which 
was in waiting in Middle Temple Lane, and to which I followed 
her with tears in my eyes, amidst a crowd of jeering barristers’ 
boys and Temple porters. But she pulled up the window in 
my face, and would no more come back to me than Eurydice 
would to Orpheus. 

If I grow pathetic over this story, my dear Bob, have I not 
reason ? Your great-aunt left thirty thousand pounds to your 
family, and the remainder to the missionaries, and it is a cu- 
rious proof of the inconsistency of women, that she, a serious 
person, said on her death-bed that she would have left her 
money to me, if I had called out Mr. Bludyer, who insulted her, 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


416 

and with whom I certainly would have exchanged shots, had 
I thought that Mrs. MacWhirter would have encouraged any 
such murder. 

My wishes, dear Bob, are moderate. Your aunt left me a 
handsome competency — and, I repeat, I do not grudge my 
brother George the money. Nor is it probable that such a ca- 
lamity can happen again to any of our family — that would be 
too great misfortune. But I tell you the tale, because at least 
it shows you how important good company is, and that a young 
man about town should beware of his friends as well as of his 
enemies. 

The other day I saw you walking by the Serpentine with 
young Lord Foozle, of the Windsor Heavies, who nodded to 
all sorts of suspicious broughams on the ride, while you looked 
about (you know you did, you young rascal) for acquaintances 
— as much as to say — “ See ! here am I, Bob Brown, of Pump 
Court, walking with a lord.” 

My dear Bob, I own that to walk with a lord, and to be 
seen with him is a pleasant thing. Every man of the middle 
class likes to know persons of rank. If he says he don’t — 
don’t believe him. And I would certainly wish that you should 
associate with your superiors rather than your inferiors. There 
is no more dangerous or stupefying position for a man in life 
than to be a cock of small society. It prevents his ideas from 
growing : it renders him intolerably conceited. A twopenny 
halfpenny Caesar, a Brummagem dandy, a coterie philosopher 
or wit, is pretty sure to be an ass ; and, in fine, I set it down 
as a maxim that it is good for a man to live where he can meet 
his betters, intellectual and social. 

But if you fancy that getting into Lord Foozle’s set will do 
you good or advance your prospects in life, my dear Bob, you 
are wofully mistaken. The Windsor Heavies are a most gem 
tlemanlike, well-made, and useful set of men. The conversa^ 
tion of such of them as I have had the good fortune to meet, 
has not certainly inspired me with a respect for their intellect 
tual qualities, nor is their life commonly of that kind which 
rigid ascetics would pronounce blameless. Some of the young 
men amongst them talk to the broughams, frequent the private 
boxes, dance at the Casinos ; few read — many talk about horse- 
flesh and the odds after dinner, or relax with a little lansquenet 
or a little billiards at Pratt’s. 

My boy, it is not with the eye of a moralist that your ven- 
erable old uncle examines these youths, but rather of a natural 


SKETCHES AND TEA EELS IN LONDON 


417 


philosopher, who inspects them as he would any other phe- 
nomenon, or queer bird, or odd fish, or fine flower. These fel- 
lows are like the flowers, and neither toil nor spin, but are 
decked out in magnificent apparel : and for some wise and 
useful purpose no doubt. It is good that there should be hon- 
est, handsome, hard-living, hard-riding, stupid young Windsor 
Heavies — as that there should be polite young gentleman in the 
Temple, or any other variety of our genus. 

And it is good that you should go from time to time to the 
Heavies’ mess, if they ask you ; and know that worthy set of 
gentlemen. But beware, O Bob, how you live with them. Re- 
member that your lot in life is to toil, and spin too — and calcu- 
late how much time it takes a Heavy or a man of that condition 
to do nothing. Say, he dines at eight o’clock, and spends 
seven hours after dinner in pleasure. Well, if he goes to bed 
at three in the morning — that precious youth must have nine 
hours’ sleep, which bring him to twelve o’clock next day. when 
he will have a headache probably, so that he can hardly be ex- 
pected to dress, rally, have devilled chicken and pale ale, and 
get out before three. Friendship — the Club — the visits which 
he is compelled to pay, occupy him till five or six, and what 
time is there left for exercise and a ride in the Park, and for a 
second toilette preparatory to dinner, &c. ? — He goes on this 
routine of pleasure, this young Heavy, as you in yours of duty 
— one man in London is pretty nearly as busy as another. The 
company of young “ Swells,” then, if you will permit me the word, 
is not for you. You must consider that you should not spend 
more than a certain sum for your dinner — they need not. You 
wear a black coat, and they a shining cuirass and monstrous 
epaulets. Yours is the useful part in life and theirs the splendid 
— though why speak further on this subject? Since the days 
of the Frog and the Bull, a desire to cope with Bulls has been 
known to be fatal to Frogs. 

And to know young noblemen, and brilliant and notorious 
town bucks and leaders of fashion, has this great disadvantage 
— that if you talk about them or are seen with them much, you 
offend all your friends of middle life. It makes men angry to 
see their acquaintances better off than they themselves are. 
If you live much with great people, others will be sure to say 
that you are a sneak. I have known Jack Jolliff, whose fun 
and spirits made him adored by the dandies (for they are just 
such folks as you and I, only with not quite such good brains, 
and perhaps better manners — simple folks who want to be 
amused) — I have known Jack Jolliff, I say, offend a whole 

2 7 


4 iS SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

roomful of men by telling us that he had been dining with a 
Duke. We hadn’t been to dine with a Duke. We were not 
courted by grandees — and we disliked the man who was, and 
said he was a parasite, because men of fashion courted him. I 
don’t know any means by which men hurt themselves more in 
the estimation of their equals than this of talking of great folks. 
A man may mean no harm by it — he speaks of the grandees 
with whom he lives, as you and I do of Jack and Tom who give 
us dinners. But his old acquaintances do not forgive him his 
superiority, and set the Tuft-hunted down as the Tuft-hunter. 

I remember laughing at the jocular complaint made by one 
of this sort, a friend, whom I shall call Main. After Main 
published his “ Travels in the Libyan Desert ” four years ago, 
he became a literary lion, and roared in many of the metropol- 
itan salons . He is a good-natured fellow, never in the least 
puffed up by his literary success ; and always said that it would 
not last. His greatest leonine quality, however, is his appetite ; 
and to behold him engaged on a Club joint, or to see him make 
away with pounds of turbot, and plate after plate of entrees, 
roasts, and sweets, is indeed a remarkable sight, and refreshing 
to those who like to watch animals feeding. But since Main 
has gone out of, and other authors have come into, fashion — 
the poor fellow comically grumbles. “That year of lionization 
has ruined me. The people who used to ask me before, don’t 
ask me any more. They are afraid to invite me to Bloomsbury, 
because they fancy I am accustomed to May Fair, and May 
Fair has long since taken up with a new roarer — so that I am 
quite alone ! ” And thus he dines at the Club almost every day 
at his own charges now, and attacks the joint. I do not envy 
the man who comes after him to the haunch of mutton. 

If Fate, then, my dear Bob, should bring you in contact with 
a lord or two, eat their dinners, enjoy their company, but be 
mum about them when you go away. 

And, though it is a hard and cruel thing to say, I would 
urge you, my dear Bob, specially to beware of taking pleasant 
fellows for your friends. Choose a good disagreeable friend, if 
you be wise — a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow. All 
jolly fellows, all delights of Club smoking-rooms and billiard- 
rooms, all fellows who sing a capital song, and the like, are sure 
to be poor. As they are free with their own money, so will they 
be with yours ; and their very generosity and goodness and dis- 
position will prevent them from having the means of paying you 
back. They lend their money to some other jolly fellows. 
They accommodate each other by putting their jolly names to 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


419 


the backs of jolly bills. Gentlemen in Cursitor Street are on 
the look-out for them. Their tradesmen ask for them, and find 
them not. Ah ! Bob, it’s hard times with a gentleman,, when he 
has to walk round a street for fear of meeting a creditor there, 
and for a man of courage, when he can’t look a tailor in the 
face. 

Eschew jolly fellows then, my boy, as the most dangerous 
and costly of company, and & propos of bills — if I ever hear of 
your putting your name to stamped paper — I will disown you, 
and cut you off with a protested shilling. 

I know many men who say (whereby I have my private 
opinion of their own probity) that all poor people are dishonest • 
this is a hard word, though more generally true than some folks 
suppose — but I fear that all people much in debt are not lion* 
est. A man who has to wheedle a tradesman is not going 
through a very honorable business in life — a man with a bill be- 
coming due to-morrow morning, and putting a good face on it 
in the Club, is perforce a hypocrite whilst he is talking to you 
— a man who has to do any meanness about money I fear me is 
so nearly like a rogue, that it’s not much use calculating where 
the difference lies. Let us be very gentle with our neighbor’s 
failings ; and forgive our friends their debts, as we hope our- 
selves to be forgiven. But the best thing of all to do with your 
debts is to pay them. Make none ; and don’t live with people 
who do. Why, if I dine with a man who is notoriously living 
beyond his means, I am a hypocrite certainly myself, and I fear 
a bit of a rogue too. I try to make my host believe that I be- 
lieve him an honest fellow. I look his sham splendor in the 
face without saying, “You are an impostor.” — Alas, Robert, I 
have partaken of feasts where it seemed to me that the plate, 
the viands, the wine, the servants, and butlers, were all sham, 
like Cinderella’s coach and footmen, and would turn into rats 
and mice, and an old shoe or a cabbage-stalk, as soon as we 
were out of the house and the clock struck twelve. 


MR. BROWN THE ELDER TAKES MR. BROWN THE 
YOUNGER TO A CLUB. 

Presuming that my dear Bobby would scarcely consider 
himself to be an accomplished man about town, until he had 
obtained an entrance into a respectable Club, I am happy to 


420 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


inform you that you are this day elected a Member of the 
“ Polyanthus,” having been proposed by my friend, Lord Vis- 
count Colchicum, and seconded by your affectionate uncle. I 
have settled with Mr. Stiff, the worthy Secretary, the prelimi- 
nary pecuniary arrangements regarding the entrance fee and 
the first annual subscription — the ensuing payments I shall 
leave to my worthy nephew. 

You were elected, sir, with but two black balls ; and every 
other man who was put up for ballot had four, with the excep- 
tion of Tom Harico, who had more black beans than white. 
Do not, however, be puffed up by this victory, and fancy your- 
self more popular than other men. Indeed I don’t mind tell- 
ing you (but, of course, I do not wish it to go any further,) that 
Captain Slyboots and I, having suspicions of the Meeting,, 
popped a couple of adverse balls into the other candidates* 
boxes ; so that, at least, you should, in case of mishap, not be 
unaccompanied in ill fortune. 

Now, then, that you are a member of the “ Polyanthus,” I 
trust you will comport yourself with propriety in the place : and 
permit me to offer you a few hints with regard to your bearing. 

We are not so stiff at the “ Polyanthus ” as at some clubs I 
could name — and a good deal of decent intimacy takes place 
amongst us. — Do not therefore enter the Club, as I have seen 
men do at the “ Chokers ” (of which I am also a member), with 
your eyes scowling under your hat at your neighbor, and with 
an expression of countenance which seems to say, “ Hang your 
impudence, sir. How dare you stare at me ? ” Banish that 
absurd dignity and swagger, which do not at all become your 
youthful countenance, my dear Bob, and let us walk up the 
steps and into the place. See, old Noseworthy is in the bow- 
window reading the paper — he is always in the bow-window 
reading the paper. 

We pass by the worthy porter, and alert pages — a fifteen- 
hundredth part of each of whom is henceforth your paid-for 
property — and you see he takes down your name as Mr. R. 
Brown, Junior, and will know you and be civil to you until 
death — Ha, there is Jawkins, as usual; he has nailed poor 
Styles up against a pillar, and is telling him what the opinion of 
the City is about George Hudson, Esq., and when Sir Robert will 
take the government. How d’you do, Jawkins? — Satisfactory 
news from India ? Gilbert to be made Baron Gilbert of Goo- 
jerat ? Indeed, I don’t introduce you to Jawkins, my poor 
Bob ; he will do that for himself, and you will have quite 
enough of him before many days are over. 


421 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

Those three gentlemen sitting on the sofa are from our be- 
loved sister island ; they come here every day, and wait for the 
Honorable Member for Ballinafad, who is at present in the 
writing- room. 

I have remarked in London, however, that every Irish gen- 
tleman is accompanied by other Irish gentlemen, who wait for 
him as here, or at the corner of the street. These are waiting 
until the Honorable Member for Ballinafad can get them three 
places, in the Excise, in the Customs, and a little thing in the 
Post Office, no doubt. One of them sends home a tremendous 
account of parties and politics here, which appears in the 
Balli?iafad Banner. He knows everything. He ha§ just been 
closeted with Peel, and can vouch for it that Clarendon has been 
sent for. He knows who wrote the famous pamphlet, “ Ways 
and Means for Ireland,” — all the secrets of the present Cab- 
inet, the designs of Sir James Graham. How Lord John can 
live under those articles which he writes in the Banner is a 
miracle to me ! I hope he will get that little thing in the Post 
Office soon. 

This is the newspaper-room — enter the Porter with the even- 
ing papers — what a rush the men make for them ! Do you 
want to see one ? Here is the Standard — nice article about 
the “ Starling Club ” — very pleasant, candid, gentlemanlike 
notice — Club composed of clergymen, atheists, authors, and 
artists. Their chief conversation is blasphemy : they have 
statues of Socrates and Mahomet on the centre-piece of the 
dinner-table, take every opportunity of being disrespectful to 
Moses, and a dignified clergyman always proposes the Glo- 
rious, Pious, and Immortal Memory of Confucius. Grace is 
said backwards, and the Catechism treated with the most 
irreverent ribaldry by the comic authors and the general com- 
pany. — Are these men to be allowed to meet, and their horrid 
orgies to continue ? Have you had enough ? — let us go into 
the other rooms. 

What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents 
after the bawl and bustle of the newspaper-room ! There is 
never anybody here. English gentlemen get up such a pro- 
digious quantity of knowledge in their early life, that they 
leave off reading soon after they begin to shave, or never look 
at anything but a newspaper. How pleasant this room is, — 
isn’t it ? with its sober draperies, and long calm lines of peace- 
ful volumes — nothing to interrupt the quiet — only the melody 
of Horner’s nose as he lies asleep upon one of the sofas. 
What is he reading? Hah! “ Pendennis,” No. VII. — hum* 


422 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


let us pass on. Have you read “ David Copperfield,” by the 
way ? How beautiful it is — how charmingly fresh and simple 1 
In those admirable touches of tender humor — and I should 
call humor, Bob, a mixture of love and wit — who can equal 
this great genius ? There are little words and phrases in his 
books which are like personal benefits to the reader. What a 
place it is to hold in the affections of men ! What an awful re- 
sponsibility hanging over a writer ! What man holding such a 
place, and knowing that his words go forth to vast congrega- 
tions of mankind, — to grown folks — to their children, and per- 
haps to their children’s children, — but must think of his calling 
with a solemn and humble heart ! May love and truth guide 
such a man always ! It is an awful prayer ; may heaven fur- 
ther its fulfilment ! And then, Bob, let the Record revile him 
— See, here’s Horner waking up — How do you do, Horner ? 

This neighboring room, which is almost as quiet as the 
library, is the card-room, you see. There are always three or 
four devotees assembled in it ; and the lamps are scarcely ever 
out in this Temple of Trumps. 

I admire, as I see them, my dear Bobby, grave and silent 
at these little green tables, not moved outwardly by grief or 
pleasure at losing or winning, but calmly pursuing their game 
(as that pursuit is called, which is in fact the most elaborate 
science and study) at noon-day, entirely absorbed, and philo- 
sophically indifferent to the bustle and turmoil of the enormous 
working world without. Disraeli may make his best speech ; 
the Hungarians may march into Vienna ; the Protectionists 
come in ; Louis Philippe be restored ; or the Thames set on 
fire ; and Colonel Pam and Mr. Trumpington will never leave 
their table, so engaging is their occupation at it. The turning 
up of an ace is of more interest to them than all the affairs of 
all the world besides — and so they will go on until Death sum- 
mons them, and their last trump is played. 

It is curious to think that a century ago almost all gentle- 
men, soldiers, statesmen, men of science, and divines, passed 
hours at play every day ; as our grandmothers did likewise. 
The poor old kings and queens must feel the desertion now, 
and deplore the present small number of their worshippers, as 
compared to the myriads of faithful subjects who served them 
in past times. 

I do not say that other folks’ pursuits are much more or 
less futile ; but fancy a life such as that of the Colonel — eight 
or nine hours of sleep, eight of trumps, and the rest for 
business, reading, exercise, and domestic duty or affection (to 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


423 


be sure he's most likely a bachelor, so that the latter offices 
do not occupy him much), — fancy such a life, and at its conclu- 
sion at the age of seventy-five, the worthy gentleman being able 
to say, I have spent twenty-five years of my existence turning 
up trumps. 

With Trumpington matters are different. Whist is a pro- 
fession with him, just as much as Law is yours. He makes the 
deepest study of it — he makes every sacrifice to his pursuit : he 
may be fond of wine and company, but he eschews both, to 
keep his head cool and play his rubber. He is a man of good 
parts, and was once well read, as you see by his conversation 
when he is away from the table, but he gives up reading for 
play — and knows that to play well a man must play every day. 
He makes three or four hundred a year by his Whist, and well 
he may — with his brains, and half his industry, he could make 
a larger income at any other profession. 

In a game with these two gentlemen, the one who has been 
actually seated at that card-table for a term as long as your 
whole life, the other who is known as a consummate practitioner, 
do you think it is likely you will come off a winner ? The state 
of your fortune is your look-out, not theirs. They are there at 
their posts — like knights ready to meet all comers. If you 
choose to engage them, sit down. They will, with the most 
perfect probity, calmness, and elegance of manner, win and win 
of you until they have won every shilling of a fortune, when they 
will make you a bow, and wish you good-morning. You may 
go and drown yourself afterwards — it is not their business. 
Their business is to be present in that room, and to play cards 
with you or anybody. When you are done with — Bon jou7\ 
My dear Colonel, let me introduce you to a new member, my 
nephew, Mr. Robert Brown. 

The other two men at the table are the honorable G. Wind- 
gall and Mr. Chanter : perhaps you have not heard that the 
one made rather a queer settlement at the last Derby; and the 
other has just issued from one of her Majesty’s establishments 
in St. George’s Fields. 

Either of these gentlemen is perfectly affable, good-natured, 
and easy of access — and will cut you for half-crowns if you like, 
or play you at any game on the cards. They descend from 
their broughams or from horseback at the Club door with the 
most splendid air, and they feast upon the best dishes and wines 
in the place. 

But do you think it advisable to play cards with them ? 
Which know the games best — you or they ? Which are most 


424 


SKETCHES AND ERA VELS IN LONDON. 


likely — we will not say to play foul — but to take certain little 
advantages in the game which their consummate experience 
teaches them — you or they ? Finally, is it a matter of perfect 
certainty, if you won, that they would pay you ? 

Let us leave these gentlemen, my dear Bob, and go through 
the rest of the house. 

From the library we proceed to the carved and gilded 
drawing-room of the Club, the damask hangings of which are 
embroidered with our lovely emblem, the polyanthus, and which 
is fitted with a perfectly unintelligible splendor. Sardanapalus, 
if he had pawned one of his kingdoms, could not have had 
such mirrors as one of those in which I see my dear Bob ad- 
miring the tie of his cravat with such complacency, and I am 
sure I cannot comprehend why Smith and Brown should have 
their persons reflected in such vast sheets of quicksilver ; or 
why, if we have a mind to a sixpenny cup of tea and muffins, 
when we come in with muddy boots from a dirty walk, those 
refreshments should be served to us as we occupy a sofa much 
more splendid, and far better stuffed, than any Louis Quatorze 
ever sat upon. I want a sofa as I want a friend, upon which I 
can repose familiarly. If you can’t have intimate terms and 
freedom with one and the other, they are of no good. A full- 
dress Club is an absurdity — and no man ought to come into 
this room except in a uniform or court suit. I daren’t put my 
feet on yonder sofa for fear of sullying the damask, or, worse 
still, for fear that Hicks the Committee-man should pass, and 
spy out my sacrilegious boots on the cushion. 

We pass through these double-doors, and enter rooms of a 
very different character. 

By the faint and sickly odor pervading this apartment, by 
the opened windows, by the circular stairs upon the marble 
tables, which indicate the presence of brandies-and-waters long 
passed into the world of spirits, my dear Bob will have no diffi- 
culty in recognizing the smoking-room, where I dare say he 
will pass a good deal of his valuable time henceforth. 

If I could recommend a sure way of advancement and pro- 
fit to a young man about town, it would be after he has come 
away from a friend’s house and dinner, where he has to a 
surety had more than enough of claret and good things, when 
he ought to be going to bed at midnight, so that he might 
rise fresh and early for his morning’s work, to stop, never- 
theless, for a couple of hours at the Club, and smoke in this 
room and tipple weak brandy-and-water. 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


425 


By a perseverance in this system, you may get a number of 
advantages. By sitting up till three of a summer morning, you 
have the advantage of seeing the sun rise, and as you walk 
home to Pump Court, can mark the quiet of the streets in the 
rosy glimmer of the dawn. You can easily spend in that 
smoking-room, (as for the billiard-room adjacent, how much 
more can’t you get rid of there,) and without any inconvenience 
or extravagance whatever, enough money to keep you a horse. 
Three or four cigars when you are in the Club, your case filled 
when you are going away, a couple of glasses of very weak 
cognac and cold water, will cost you sixty pounds a year, as 
sure as your name is Bob Brown. And as for the smoking and 
tippling, plus billiards, they may be made to cost anything. 

And then you have the advantage of hearing such delight- 
ful and instructive conversation in a Club smoking-room, be- 
tween the hours of twelve and three ! Men who frequent that 
place at that hour are commonly men of studious habits and 
philosophical and reflective minds, to whose opinions it is 
pleasant and profitable to listen. They are full of anecdotes, 
which are always moral and well chosen ; their talk is never 
free, or on light subjects. I have one or two old smoking- 
room pillars in my eye now, who would be perfect models for 
any young gentleman entering life, and to whom a father could 
not do better than entrust the education of his son. 

To drop the satirical vein, my dear Bob, I am compelled as 
a man to say my opinion, that the best thing you can do with 
regard to that smoking-room is to keep out of it ; or at any 
rate never to be seen in the place after midnight. They are 
very pleasant and frank, those jolly fellows, those loose fishes, 
those fast young men — but the race in life is not to such fast 
men as these — and you who want to win must get up early of a 
morning, my boy. You and an old college-chum or two may 
sit together over your cigar-boxes in one another’s chambers, 
and talk till all hours, and do yourselves good probably. Talk- 
ing among you is a wholesome exercitation ; humor comes in 
an easy flow ; it doesn’t preclude grave argument and manly 
interchange of thought — I own myself, when I was younger, to 
have smoked many a pipe with advantage in the company of 
Doctor Parr. Honest men, with pipes or cigars in their mouths, 
have great physical advantages in conversation. You may 
stop talking if you like — but the breaks of silence never seem 
disagreeable, being filled up by the puffing of the smoke — 
hence there is no awkwardness in resuming the conversation — 
no straining for effect — sentiments are delivered in a grave, 


4 2 6 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 

easy manner— the cigar harmonizes the society, and soothes 
at once the speaker and the subject whereon he converses. I 
have no doubt that it is from the habit of smoking that Turks 
and American-Indians are such monstrous well-bred men. 
The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and 
shuts up the mouth of the foolish : it generates a style of con- 
versation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaf- 
fected : in fact, dear Bob, I must out with it — I am an old 
smoker. At home I have done it up the chimney rather than 
not to do it (the which I own is a crime). I vow and believe 
that the cigar has been one of the greatest creature-comforts 
of my life — a kind companion, a gentle stimulant, an amiable 
anodyne, a cementer of friendship. May I die if I abuse that 
kindly weed which has given me so much pleasure 1 

Since I have been a member of that Club, what numbers of 
men have occupied this room and departed from it, like so 
many smoked-out cigars, leaving nothing behind but a little 
disregarded ashes ! Bob, my boy, they drop off in the course 
of twenty years, our boon companions, and jolly fellow bottle- 
crackers. — I mind me of many a good fellow who has talked and 
laughed here, and whose pipe is put out forever. Men, I re- 
member as dashing youngsters but the other day, have passed 
into the state of old fogies : they have sons, sir, of almost our 
age, when first we joined the “ Polyanthus.” Grass grows over 
others in all parts of the world. Where is poor Ned ? Where 
is poor Fred? Dead rhymes with Ned and Fred too — their 
place knows them not — their names one year appeared at the 
end of .the Club list, under the dismal category of Members 
Deceased,” in which you and I shall rank some day. Do you 
keep that subject steadily in your mind ? I do not see why one 
shouldn’t meditate upon Death in Pall Mall as well as in a 
howling wilderness. There is enough to remind one of it at 
every corner. — There is a strange face looking out of Jack’s 
old lodgings in Jermyn Street, — somebody else has got the 
Club chair which Tom used to occupy. He doesn’t dine here 
and grumble as he used formerly. He has been sent for, and 
has not come back again — one day Fate will send for us, and 
we shall not return — and the people will come down to the 
Club as usual, saying, “Well, and so poor old Brown is gone.” 
— Indeed, a smoking-room on a morning is not a cheerful spot. 

Our room has a series of tenants of quite distinct characters. 
After an early and sober dinner below, certain habitues of the 
“ Polyanthus ” mount up to this apartment for their coffee and 
cigar, and talk as gravely as Sachems at a Palaver. Trade and 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


427 

travel, politics and geography, are their discourse — they are in 
bed long before their successors the jolly fellows begin their 
night life, and the talk of the one set is as different from the con- 
versation of the other, as any talk can be. 

After the grave old Sachems, come other frequenters of the 
room * a squad of sporting men very likely — very solemn and 
silent personages these — who give the odds, and talk about the 
Cup in a darkling undertone. Then you shall have three or 
four barristers with high voices, seldom able to sit long without 
talking of their profession, or mentioning something about 
Westminster Hall. About eleven, men in white neck-cloths 
drop in from dinner-parties, and show their lackered boots and 
shirt-studs with a little complacency — and at midniglit, after 
the theatres, the young rakes and viveurs come swaggering in, 
and call loudly for gin-twist. 

But as for a Club smoking-room after midnight, I vow again 
that you are better out of it : that you will waste money and 
your precious hours and health there ; and you may frequent 
this “ Polyanthus ” room for a year, and not carry away from 
the place one single idea or story that can do you the least 
good in life. How much you shall take away of another sort, 
I do not here set down ; but I have before my mind’s eye the 
image of old Silenus, with purple face and chalk-stone fingers, 
telling his foul old garrison legends over his gin-and-water. 
He is in the smoking-room every night ; and I feel that no one 
can get benefit from the society of that old man. 

What society he has he gets from this place. He sits for 
hours in a corner on the sofa, and makes up his parties here. 
He will ask you after a little time, seeing that you are a gentle- 
man and have a good address, and will give you an exceedingly 
good dinner. I went once, years ago, to a banquet of his— and 
found all the men at his table were Polyanthuses : so that it 

was a house dinner in Square, with Mrs. Silenus at the 

head of the table. 

After dinner she retired and was no more seen, and Silenus 
amused himself by making poor Mr. Tippleton drunk. He 
came to the Club the next day, he amused himself by describ- 
ing the arts by which he had practised upon the easy brains of 
poor Mr.. Tippleton — (as if that poor fellow wanted any arts or 
persuasion to induce him to intoxicate himself), and told all the 
smoking-room how he had given a dinner, how many bottles of 
wine had been emptied, and how many Tippleton had drunk for 
his share. “ I kept my eye on Tip, sir,” the horrid old fellow 
said — “ I took care to make him mix his liquors well, and before 


428 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


eleven o’clock I finished him, and had him as drunk as a lord, 
sir ! ” Will you like to have that gentleman for a friend ? He 
has elected himself our smoking-room king at the “ Polyan- 
thus,” and midnight monarch. 

As he talks, in comes poor Tippleton — a kind soul — a 
gentleman — a man of reading and parts — who has friends at 
home very likely, and had once a career before him — and what 
is he now ? His eyes are vacant ; he reels into a sofa corner, 
and sits in maudlin silence, and hiccoughs every now and then. 
Old Silenus winks knowingly round at the whole smoking-room : 
most of the men sneer — some pity — some very young cubs 
laugh and jeer at him. Tippleton’s drunk. 

From the Library and Smoking-room regions let us descend 
to the lower floor. Here you behold the Coffee-room, where 
the neat little tables are already laid out, awaiting the influx of 
diners. 

A great advance in civilization was made, and the honesty 
as well as economy of young men of the middle classes im- 
mensely promoted, when the ancient tavern system was over- 
thrown, and those houses of meeting instituted where a man, 
without sacrificing his dignity, could dine for a couple of 
shillings. I remember in the days of my youth when a very 
moderate dinner at a reputable coffee-house cost a man half a 
guinea : when you were obliged to order a pint of wine for the 
good of the house ; when the waiter got a shilling for his at- 
tendance ; and when young gentlemen were no richer than 
they are now, and had to pay thrice as much as they at present 
need to disburse for the maintenance of their station. 

Then men (who had not the half-guinea at command) used 
to dive into dark streets in the vicinage of Soho or Covent 
Garden, and get a meagre meal at shilling taverns — or Tom, 
the clerk, issued out from your Chambers in Pump Court and 
brought back your dinner between two plates from a neighbor- 
ing ham-and-beef shop. Either repast was strictly honorable, 
and one can find no earthy fault with a poor gentleman for 
eating a poor meal. But that solitary meal in Chambers was 
indeed a dismal refection. I think with anything but regret of 
those lonely feasts of beef and cabbage ; and how there was no 
resource for the long evenings but those books, over which you 
had been poring all day, or the tavern with its deuced expenses, 
or the theatre with its vicious attractions. A young bachelor’s 
life was a clumsy piece of wretchedness then — mismanaged and 
ill economized — -just as your Temple Chambers or College 
rooms now are, which are quite behind the age in the decent 
conveniences which every modern tenement possesses. 


SKETCHES AND TEA EELS IN LONDON. 429 

And that dining for a shilling and strutting about Pall Mall 
afterwards was, after all, an hypocrisy. At the time when the 
“ Trois Freres Proven$aux” at Paris had two entrances, one 
into the place of the Palais Royal, and one into the street 
behind, where the sixteen-sous dinner-houses are, I have seen 
bucks with profuse toothpicks walk out of these latter houses 
of entertainment, pass up the “ Trois Freres ” stairs, and de- 
scend from the other door into the Palais Royal, so that the 
people walking there might fancy the poor fellows had been 
dining r.egardless of expense. No ; what you call putting a 
good face upon poverty, that is, hiding it under a grin, or con- 
cealing its rags under a makeshift, is always rather a base 
stratagem. Your Beaux Tibbs and twopenny dandies can never 
be respectable altogether ; and if a man is poor, I say he ought 
to seem poor ; and that both he and Society are in the wrong, 
if either sees any cause of shame in poverty. 

That is why we ought to be thankful for Clubs. Here is no 
skulking to get a cheap dinner ; no ordering of expensive 
liquors and dishes for the good of the house, or cowering sen- 
sitiveness as to the opinion of the waiter. We advance in 
simplicity and honesty as we advance in civilization, and it is 
my belief that we become better bred and less artificial, and 
tell more truth every day. 

This, you see, is the Club Coffee-room — it is three o’clock ; 
young Wideawake is just finishing his breakfast (with whom I 
have nothing to do at present, but to say parenthetically, that 
if you will sit up till five o’clock in the morning, Bob my boy, 
you may look out to have a headache and a breakfast at three 
in the afternoon). Wideawake is at breakfast — Goldsworthy is 
ordering his dinner — while Mr. Nudgit, whom you see yonder, 
is making his lunch. In those two gentlemen is the moral and 
exemplification of the previous little remarks which I have been 
making. 

You must know, sir, that at the “ Polyanthus,” in common 
with most Clubs, gentlemen are allowed to enjoy, gratis, in the 
Coffee-room, bread, beer, sauces, and pickles. 

After four o’clock, if you order your dinner, you have to 
pay sixpence for what is called the table — the clean cloth, the 
vegetables, cheese, and so forth : before that hour you may 
have lunch, when there is no table charge. 

Now, Goldsworthy is a gentleman and a man of genius, who 
has courage and simplicity enough to be poor — not like some 
fellows whom one meets, and who make a fanfaronnadc of 
poverty, and draping themselves in their rags, seem to cry, 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELSIN LONDON 


43 ° 

u See how virtuous I am, — how honest Diogenes is ! v but he is 
a very poor manj whose education and talents are of the best, 
and who in so far claims to rank with the very best people 
in the world. In his place in Parliament, when he takes off 
his hat (which is both old and well brushed), the Speaker’s eye 
is pretty sure to meet his, and the House listens to him with 
the respect which is due to so much honesty and talent. He 
is the equal of any man, however lofty or wealthy. His social 
position is rather improved by his poverty, and the world, 
which is a manly and generous world in its impulses, however 
it may be in its practice, contemplates with a sincere regard 
and admiration Mr. Goldsworthy’s manner of bearing his lack 
of fortune. He is going to dine for a shilling ; he will have 
two mutton-chops (and the mutton-chop is a thing unknown in 
domestic life and in the palaces of epicures, where you may 
get cutlets dressed with all sorts of French sauces, but not the 
admirable mutton-chop), and with a due allowance of the Club 
bread and beer, he will make a perfectly wholesome, and suffi- 
cient, and excellent meal ; and go down to the House and fire 
into Ministers this very night. 

Now, I say, this man dining for a shilling is a pleasant 
spectacle to behold. I respect Mr. Goldsworthy with all my 
heart, without sharing those ultra-conservative political opinions 
which we all know he entertains, and from which no interest, 
temptation, or hope of place will cause him to swerve ; and you 
see he is waited upon with as much respect here as old Silenus, 
though he order the most sumptuous banquet the cook can 
devise, or bully the waiters ever so. 

But ah, Bob ! what can we say of the conduct of that poor 
little Mr. Nudgit ? He has a bedchamber in some court un- 
known in the neighborhood of the “ Polyanthus.” He makes 
a breakfast with the Club bread and beer ; he lunches off the 
same supplies — and being of an Epicurean taste, look what he 
does — he is actually pouring a cruet of anchovy sauce over his 
bread to give it a flavor ; and I have seen the unconscionable 
little gourmand sidle off to the pickle-jars when he thought 
nobody was observing, and pop a walnut or half a dozen of 
pickled onions into his mouth, and swallow them with a hideous 
furtive relish. 

He disappears at dinner-time, and returns at half-past seven 
or eight o’clock, and wanders round the tables when the men 
are at their dessert and generous over their wine. He has a 
number of little stories about the fashionable world to tell, and 
is not unentertaining. When you dine here, sometimes give 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON . 431 

Nudgit a glass or two out of your decanter, Bob my boy, and 
comfort his poor old soul. He was a gentleman once and had 
money, as he will be sure to tell you. He is mean and feeble, 
but not unkind — a poor little parasite not to be unpitied. Mr. 
Nudgit, allow me to introduce you to a new member, my 
nephew, Mr. Robert Brown. 

At this moment, old Silenus swaggers in, bearing his great 
waistcoat before him, and walking up to the desk where the 
coffee-room clerk sits and where the bills of fare are displayed. 
As he passes, he has to undergo the fire of Mr. Goldsworthy’s 
eyes, which dart out at him two flashes of the most killing 
scorn. He has passed by the battery without sinking, and lays 
himself alongside the desk. Nudgit watches him, and will 
presently go up smirking humbly to join him. 

“ Hunt,” he says, “ I want a table, my table, you know, at 
seven — dinner for eight — Lord Hobanob dines with me — send 
the butler — What’s in the bill of fare ? Let’s have clear soup 
and turtle — I’ve sent it in from the City — dressed fish and 
turbot,” and with a swollen trembling hand he writes down a 
pompous bill of fare. 

As I said, Nudgit comes up simpering, with a newspaper in 
his hand. 

“ Hullo, Nudg!” says Mr. Silenus, “'how’s the beer? 
Pickles good to-day ? ” 

Nudgit smiles in a gentle deprecatory manner. 

“ Smell out a good dinner, hey, Nudg ? ” says Dives.' 

“ If any man knows how to give one, you do,” answers the 
poor beggar. “ I wasn’t a bad hand at ordering a dinner 
myself, once ; what’s the fish in the list to-day ? ” and with a 
weak smile he casts his eye over the bill of fare. 

44 Lord Hobanob dines with me, and he knows what a good 
dinner is, I can tell you,” says Mr. Silenus, “ so does Cramley.” 

44 Both well-known epicures,” says Nudgit. 

“ I’m going to give Hobanob a return dinner to his at the 
4 Rhododendrum.’ He bet me that Batifol, the chef at the 
4 Rhododendrum,’ did better than our man can. Hob’s dinner 
was last Wednesday, and I don’t say it wasn’t a good one ; or 
that taking Grosbois by surprise, is giving him quite fair play 
— but we’ll see, Nudgit. /know what Grosbois can do.” 

44 1 should think you did, indeed, Silenus,” says the other. 

44 1 see your mouth’s watering. I’d ask you, only I know 
you’re engaged. You’re always engaged, Nudgit — not to-day? 
Well then, you may come ; and I say, Mr. Nudgit, we’ll have a 
*vet evening, sir, mind you that.” 


432 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


Mr. Bowls, the butler, here coming in, Mr. Silenus falls 
into conversation with him about wines and icing. I am glad 
poor Nudgit has got his dinner. He will go and walk in the 
Park to get up an appetite. And now, Mr. Bob, having shown 
you over your new house, I too will bid you for the present 
farewell. 


A WORD ABOUT BALLS IN SEASON. 

When my good friend, Mr. Punch , some time since, asked 
me to compile a series of conversations for young men in the 
dancing world, so that they might be agreeable to their part- 
ners, and advance their own- success in life, I consented with a 
willing heart to my venerable friend’s request, for I desire 
nothing better than to promote the amusement and happiness 
of all young people ; and nothing, I thought, would be easier 
than to touch off a few light, airy, graceful little sets of phrases 
which young fellows might adopt or expand, according to their 
own ingenuity and leisure. 

Well, sir, I imagined myself, just for an instant, to be young 
again, and that I had a neat waist instead of that bow-window 
with which Time and Nature have ornamented the castle of my 
body, and brown locks instead of a bald pate (there was a time 
sir, when my hair was not considered the worst part of me, and 
I recollect when I was a young man in the Militia, and when 
pigtails finally went out in our corps, who it was that longed to 
have my queue — it was found in her desk at her death, and my 
poor dear wife was always jealous of her,) — I just chose, I say, 
to fancy myself a young man, and that I would go up in imag- 
ination and ask a girl to dance with me. So I chose Maria 
— a man might go farther and fare worse than choose Maria, 
Mr. Bob. 

“ My dear Miss E.” says I, “ may I have the honor of 
dancing the next set with you ? ” 

“ The next 7vhat?” says Miss E., smiling, and turning to 
Mrs. E., as if to ask what a set meant. 

“ I forgot,” says I ; “ the next quadrille, I would say.” 

“ It is rather slow dancing quadrilles,” says Miss E. ; “ but 
if I must, I must.” 

“Well, then, a waltz, will that do ? I know nothing prettier 
than a waltz played not too quick.” 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


433 


“ What ! ” says she, “ do you want a horrid old three-timed 
waltz, like that which the little figures dance upon the barrel- 
organs? You silly old creature : you are good-natured, but you 
are in your dotage. All these dances are passed away. You 
might as well ask me to wear a gown with a waist up to my 
shoulders, like that in which mamma was married ; or a hoop 
and high heels, like grandmamma in the picture ; or to dance 
a gavotte or a minuet. Things are changed, old gentleman — 
the fashions of your time are gone, and — and the bucks of your 
time will go too, Mr. Brown. If I want to dance, here is Cap- 
tain Whiskerfield, who is ready ; or young Studdington, who is 
a delightful partner. He brings a little animation into our 
balls ; and when he is not in society, dances every night at 
Vauxhall and the Casino.” 

I pictured to myself Maria giving some such reply to my 
equally imaginative demand — for of course I never made the 
request, any more than she did the answer — and in fact, dear 
Bob, after turning over the matter of ball-room conversations in 
my mind, and sitting with pen and ink before me for a couple 
of hours, I found that I had nothing at all to say on the subject, 
and have no more right to teach a youth what he is to say in 
the present day to his partner, than I should have had in my 
own boyhood to instruct my own grandmother in the art of 
sucking eggs. We should pay as much reverence to youth as 
we should to age; there are points in which you young folks 
are altogether our superiors : and I can’t help constantly crying 
out to persons of my own years, when busied about their young 
people — leave them alone ; don’t be always meddling with their 
affairs, which they can manage for themselves ; don’t be always 
insisting upon managing their boats, and putting your oars in 
the water with theirs. 

So I have the modesty to think that Mr. Punch and I were 
a couple of conceited old fogies, in devising the above plan of 
composing conversation for the betiefit of youth, and that young 
folks can manage to talk of what interests them, without any 
prompting on our part. To say the truth, I have hardly been 
to a ball these three years. I saw the head of the stair at H. 

E.’s the T Ambassador in Br — — ne Square, the other night, 

but retired without even getting a sight of, or making my bow 
to Her Excellency ; thinking wisely that mon lait de poule et mon 
bonnet de nuit much better became me at that hour of midnight 
than the draught in a crowded passage, and the sight of ever so 
many beauties. 

But though I don’t go myself to these assemblies, I have 


434 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


intelligence amongst people who go : and hear from the girls 
and their mammas what they do, and how they enjoy themselves. 
I must own that some of the new arrangements please me very 
much, as being natural and simple, and, in so far, superior to 
the old mode. 

In my time, for instance, a ball-room used to be more than 
half-filled with old male and female fogies, whose persons took 
up a great deal of valuable room, who did not in the least 
ornament the walls against which they stood, and who would 
have been much better at home in bed. In a great country- 
house, where you have a hall fireplace in which an ox might 
be roasted conveniently, the presence of a few score more or 
less of stout old folks can make no difference; there is room 
for them at the card-tables, and round the supper-board, and 
the sight of their honest red faces and white waistcoats lining 
the wall cheers and illuminates the Assembly Room. 

But it is a very different case when you have a small house 
in May Fair, or in the pleasant district of Pimlico and Tyburn ; 
and accordingly I am happy to hear that the custom is rapidly 
spreading of asking none but dancing people to balls. It was 
only this morning that I was arguing the point with our cousin 
Mrs. Crowder, who was greatly irate because her daughter 
Fanny had received an invitation to go with her aunt, Mrs. 
Timmins, to Lady Tutbury’s ball, whereas poor Mrs. Crowder 
had been told that she could on no account get a card. 

Now Blanche Crowder is a very large woman naturally, and 
.with the present fashion of flounces in dress, this balloon of a 
creature would occupy the best part of a little back drawing- 
room ; whereas Rosa Timmins is a little bit of a thing, who 
takes up no space at all, and furnishes the side of a room as 
prettily as a bank of flowers could. I tried to convince our 
cousin upon this point, this embonpoint , I may say, and of course 
being too polite to make remarks personal to Mrs. Crowder, I 
playfully directed them elsewhere. 

“ Dear Blanche,” said I, “ don’t you see how greatly Lady 
Tutbury would have to extend her premises if all the relatives 
of all her dancers were to be invited ? She has already flung 
out a marquee over the leads, and actually included the cistern 
— what can she do more ! If all the girls were to have chape- 
rons, where could the elders sit? Tutbury himself will not be 
present. He is a large and roomy man, like your humble 
servant, and Lady Tut has sent him off to Greenwich, or the 
‘Star and Garter’ for the night, where, I have no doubt, he 
and some other stout fellows will make themselves comfortable. 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


435 


At a ball amongst persons of moderate means and large 
acquaintance in London, room is much more precious than 
almost anybody's company, except that of the beauties and the 
dancers. Look at Lord Trampleton, that enormous hulking 
monster, (who nevertheless dances beautifully, as all big men 
do,) when he takes out his favorite partner, Miss Wirledge, to 
polk, his arm, as he whisks her round and round, forms radii of 
a circle of very considerable diameter. He almost wants a 
room to himself. Young men and women now, when they 
dance, dance really; it is no lazy sauntering, as of. old, but 
downright hard work — after which they want air and refresh- 
ment. How can they get the one, when the rooms are filled 
with elderly folks ; or the other, when we are squeezing round 
the supper-tables, and drinking up all the available champagne 
and seltzer water ? No, no ; the present plan, which ,1 hear is 
becoming general, is admirable for London. Let there be half 
a dozen of good, active, bright-eyed chaperons and duennas, 
little women, who are more active, and keep a better look-out 
than your languishing voluptuous beauties ” (I said this, casting 
at the same time a look of peculiar tenderness towards Blanche 
Crowder) ; “ let them keep watch and see that all is right — 
that the young men don’t dance too often with the same girl, or 
disappear on to the balcony, and that sort - of thing ; let them 
have good large roomy family coaches to carry the young women 
home to their mammas. In a word, at a ball, let there be for 
the future no admittance except upon business. In all the 
affairs of London life, that is the rule, depend upon it.” 

“ And pray who told you, Mr. Brown, that I didn’t wish to 
dance myself? ” says Blanche, surveying her great person in 
the looking-glass (which could scarcely contain it) and flouncing 
out of the room ; and I actually believe that the unconscionable 
creature, at her age and size, is still thinking that she is a fairy, 
and that the young fellows would like to dance round the room 
with her. Ah, Bob ! I remember that grotesque woman a slim 
and graceful girl. I remember others tender and beautiful, 
whose bright eyes glitter, and . whose sweet voices whisper no 
more. So they pass away — youth and beauty, love and inno- 
cence, pass away and perish. I think of one now, whom I 
remember the fairest and the gayest, the kindest and the purest ; 
her laughter was music — I can hear it still, though it will never 
echo any more. Far away, the silent tomb closes over her. 
Other roses than those of our prime grow up and bloom, and 
have their day. Honest youth, generous youth, may yours bo 
as pure and as fair \ 


436 SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 

I did not think when I began to write it, that the last 
sentence would have finished so ; but life is not altogether 
jocular, Mr. Bob, and one comes upon serious thoughts sud- 
denly as upon a funeral in the street. Let us go back to the 
business we are upon, namely, balls, whereof it, perhaps, has 
struck you that your uncle has very little to say. 

I saw one announced in the morning fashionable print to-day, 
with a fine list of some of the greatest folks in London, and 
had previously heard from various quarters how eager many 
persons were to attend it, and how splendid an entertainment 
it was to be. And so the morning paper announced that Mrs. 
Hornby Madox threw open her house in So-and-so Street, and 
was assisted in receiving her guests by Lady Fugleman. 

Now this is a sort of entertainment and arrangement than 
which I confess I can conceive nothing more queer, though I 
believe it is by no means uncommon in English society. Mrs. 
Hornby Madox comes into her fortune of ten thousand a year 
— wishes to be presented in the London world, having lived in 
the country previously— spares no expense to make her house 
and festival as handsome as may be, and gets Lady Fugleman 
to ask the company for her — not the honest Hornbys, not the 
family Madoxes, not the jolly old squires and friends and rela- 
tives of her family, and from her country ; but the London 
dandies and the London society ; whose names you see cnron 
icled at every party, and who, being Lady Fugleman’s friends, 
are invited by her ladyship to Mrs. Hornby’s house. 

What a strange notion of society does this give — of friend- 
ship, of fashion, of what people will do to be in the fashion ! 
Poor Mrs. Hornby comes into her fortune, and says to her old 
friends and family, “ My good people, I am going to cut every 
one of you. You were very well as long as we were in the 
country, where I might have my natural likings and affections. 
But, henceforth, I am going to let Lady Fugleman choose my 
friends for me. I know nothing about you any more. I have 
no objection to you, but if you want to know me you must ask 
Lady Fugleman : if she says yes, I shall be delighted ; if no, 
Bon jour” 

This strange business goes on daily in London. Honest 
people do it, and think not the least harm. The proudest and 
noblest do not think they demean themselves by crowding to 
Mrs. Goldcalf’s parties, and strike quite openly a union between 
her wealth and their titles, to determine as soon as the former 
ceases. There is not the least hypocrisy about this at any rate 
< — the terms of the bargain are quite understood on every hand. 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. 


437 


But oh, Bob ! see what an awful thing it is to confess, and 
would not even hypocrisy be better than this daring cynicism, 
this open heartlessness — Godlessness I had almost called it ? 
Do you mean to say, you great folks, that your object in society 
is not love, is not friendship, is not family union and affection 
— is not truth and kindness ; — is not generous sympathy and 
union of Christian (pardon me the word, but I can indicate my 
meaning by no other) — of Christian men and women, parents 
and children, — but that you assemble and meet together, not 
caring or trying to care for one another, — without a pretext of 
good-will — with a daring selfishness openly avowed ? I am 
sure I wish Mrs. Goldcalf or the other lady no harm, and have 
never spoken to, or set eyes on either of them, and I do not 
mean to say, Mr. Robert, that you and I are a whit better than 
they are, and doubt whether they have made the calculation for 
themselves of the consequences of what they are doing. But 
as sure as two and two make four, a person giving up of his own 
accord his natural friends and relatives, for the sake of the 
fashion, seems to me to say, I acknowledge myself to be heart- 
less ; I turn my back on my friends, I disown my relatives, and 
I dishonor my father and mother. 


A WORD ABOUT DINNERS. 

English Society, my beloved Bob, has this eminent ad- 
vantage over all other — that is, if there be any society left in 
the wretched distracted old European continent — that it is 
above all others a dinner-giving society. A people like the 
Germans, that dines habitually, and with what vast appetite I 
need not say, at one o’clock in the afternoon — like the Italians, 
that spends its evenings in opera-boxes — like the French, that 
amuses itself of nights with eau sucree and intrigue — cannot, 
believe me, understand Society rightly. I love and admire my 
nation for its good sense, its manliness, its friendliness, its 
morality in the main — and these, I take it, are all expressed in 
that noble institution, the dinner. 

The dinner is the happy end of the Briton’s day. We work 
harder than the other nations of the earth. We do more, we 
live more in our time, than Frenchmen or Germans. Every 
great man amongst us likes his dinner, and takes to it kindly. 
J could mention the most august names of poets, statesmen, 


438 SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. 

philosophers, historians, judges and divines, who are great at 
the dinner-table as in the field, the closet, the senate, or the 
bench. Gibbon mentions that he wrote the first two volumes 
of his history whilst a placeman in London, lodging in St. 
James’s, going to the House of Commons, to the Club, and to 
dinner every day. The man flourishes under that generous 
and robust regimen ; the healthy energies of society are kept 
up by it ; our friendly intercourse is maintained ; our intellect 
ripens with the good cheer, and throws off surprising crops, 
like the fields about Edinburgh, under the influence of that 
admirable liquid, Claret. The best wines are sent to this 
country therefore; for no other deserves them as ours does. 

I am a diner-out, and live in London. I protest, as I look 
back at the men and dinners I have seen in the last week, my 
mind is filled with manly respect and pleasure. How good they 
have been ! how admirable the entertainments ! how worthy 
the men ! 

Let me, without divulging names, and with a cordial grati- 
tude, mention a few of those whom I have met and who have 
all done their duty. 

Sir, I have sat at table with a great, a world-renowned 
statesman. I watched him during the progress of the banquet 
— I am at liberty to say that he enjoyed it like a man. 

On another day, it was a celebrated literary character. It 
was beautiful to see him at his dinner : cordial and generous, 
jovial and kindly, the great author enjoyed himself as the great 
statesman — may he long give us good books and good dinners ! 

Yet another day, and I sat opposite to a Right Reverend 
Bishop. My Lord, I was pleased to see good thing after good 
thing disappear before you ; and think no man ever better 
became that rounded episcopal apron. How amiable he was ! 
how kind ! He put water into his wine. Let us respect the 
moderation of the Church. 

And then the men learned in the law : how they dine ! what 
hospitality, what splendor, what comfort, what wine ! As we 
walked away very gently in the moonlight, only three days 

since, from the ’s, a friend of my youth and myself, we 

could hardly speak for gratitude : “ Dear sir,” we breathed 
fervently, “ ask us soon again.” One never has too much at 
those perfect banquets — no hideous headaches ensue, or horrid 
resolutions about adopting Revalenta Arabica for the future — 
but contentment with all the world, light slumbering, joyful 
waking to grapple with the morrow’s work. Ah, dear Bob, 
those lawyers have great merits. There is a dear old judge 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


439 

at whose family table if I could see you seated, my desire in 
life would be pretty nearly fulfilled. If you make yourself 
agreeable there, you will be in a fair way to get on in the world. 
But you are a youth still. Youths go to balls : men go to 
dinners. 

Doctors, again, notoriously eat well ; when my excellent 
friend Sangrado takes a bumper, and saying, with a shrug and 
a twinkle of his eye, “ Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor 
tosses off the wine, I always ask the butler for a glass of that 
bottle. 

The inferior clergy, likewise, dine very much and well. I 
don’t know when I have been better entertained, as far as 
creature comforts go, than by men of very Low Church prin- 
ciples ; and one of the very best repasts that ever I saw in my 
life was at Darlington, given by a Quaker. 

Some of the best wine in London is given to his friends by 
a poet of my acquaintance. All artists are notoriously fond of 
dinners, and invite you, but not so profusely. Newspaper- 
editors delight in dinners on Saturdays, and give them, thanks 
to the present position of Literature, very often and good. 
Dear Bob, 1 have seen the mahoganies of many men. 

Every evening between seven and eight o’clock, I like to 
look at the men dressed for dinner, perambulating the western 
districts of our City. I like to see the smile on their coun- 
tenances lighted up with an indescribable self-importance and 
good-humor - the askance glances which they cast at the little 
street-boys and foot-passengers who eye their shiny boots ; the 
dainty manner in which they trip over the pavement on those 
boots, eschewing the mud-pools and dirty crossings ; the refresh- 
ing whiteness of their linen ; the coaxing twiddle which they 
give to the ties of their white chokers — the caress of a fond 
parent to an innocent child. 

I like walking myself. Those who go in cabs or broughams, 
I have remarked, have not the same radiant expression which 
the pedestrian exhibits. A man in his own brougham has 
anxieties about the stepping of his horse, or the squaring of 
the groom’s elbows, or a doubt whether Jones’s turn-out is not 
better ; or whether something is not wrong in the springs ; or 
whether he shall have the brougham out if the night is rainy. 
They always look tragical behind the glasses. A cab diner- 
out has commonly some cares, lest his sense of justice should 
be injured by the overcharge of the driver (these fellows are 
not uncommonly exorbitant in their demands upon gentlemen 
whom they set down at good houses) ; lest the smell of tobacco 


440 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


left by the last occupants of the vehicle (five medical students, 
let us say, who have chartered the vehicle, and smoked cheroots 
from the London University to the play-house in the Hay- 
market) should infest the clothes of Tom Lavender who is 
going to Lady Rosemary’s ; lest straws should stick unobserved 
to the glutinous lustre of his boots — his shiny ones, and he 
should appear in Dives’s drawing-room like a poet with a tenui 
avend, or like Mad Tom in the play. I hope, my dear Bob, if a 
straw should ever enter a drawinghroom in the wake of your 
boot, you will not be much disturbed in mind. Hark ye, in 

confidence ; I have seen * in a hack-cab. There is no 

harm in employing one. There is no harm in anything natural, 
any more. 

I cannot help here parenthetically relating a story which 
occurred in my own youth, in the year 1815, at the time when 
I first made my own entree into society (for everything must 
have a beginning, Bob ; and though we have been gentlemen 
long before the Conqueror, and have always consorted with 
gentlemen, yet we had not always attained that haute volee of 
fashion which has distinguished some of us subsequently) ; I 
recollect, I say, in 1815, when the Marquis of Sweetbread was 
good enough to ask me and the late Mr. Ruffles to dinner, to 
meet Prince Schwartzenberg and the Hetman Platoff. Ruffles 
was a man a good deal about town in those days, and certainly 
in very good society. 

I was myself a young one, and thought Ruffles was rather 
inclined to patronize me : which I did not like. “ I would have 
you to know, Mr. Ruffles,” thought I, “ that after all, a gentle- 
man can but be a gentleman ; that though we Browns have no 
handles to our names, we are quite as well-bred as some folks 
who possess those ornaments ” — and in fine I determined to 
give him a lesson. So when he called for me in the hackney- 
coach at my lodgings in Swallow Street, and we had driven 
under the porte-cochere of Sweetbread House, where two tall 
and powdered domestics in the uniform of the Sweetbreads, 
viz. : a spinach-colored coat, with waistcoat and the rest of 
delicate yellow or melted-butter color, opened the doors of the 
hall — what do you think, sir, I did ? In the presence of these 
gentlemen, who were holding on at the door, I offered to toss 
up with Ruffles, heads or tails, who should pay for the coach ; 
and then purposely had a dispute with the poor Jarvey about 
the fare. Ruffles’s face of agony during this transaction I shall 

* Mr. Brown’s MS. here contains a name of such prodigious dignity out of the 
“ P — r-ge,” that we really do not dare to print it. 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


441 


never forget. Sir, it was like the Laocoon. Drops of perspira- 
tion trembled on his pallid brow, and he flung towards me 
looks of imploring terror that would have melted an ogre. A 
better fellow than Ruffles never lived — he is dead long since, 
and I don’t mind owning to this harmless little deceit. 

A person of some note — a favorite Snob of mine — I am 
told, when he goes to dinner, adopts what he considers a happy 
artifice, and sends his cab away at the corner of the street ; 
so that the gentleman in livery may not behold its number, or 
that the lord with whom he dines, and about whom he is always 
talking, may not be supposed to know that Mr. Smith came in 
a hack-cab. 

A man who is troubled with a shame like this, Bob, is un- 
worthy of any dinner at all. Such a man must needs be a sneak 
and a humbug, anxious about the effect which he is to produce : 
uneasy in his mind : a donkey in a lion’s skin : a small pretender 
— distracted by doubts and frantic terrors of what is to come 
next. Such a man can be no more at ease in his chair at dinner 
than a man is in the fauteuil at the dentist’s (unless indeed he 
go to the admirable Mr. Gilbert in Suffolk Street, who is dragged 
into this essay for the benefit of mankind alone, and who, I 
vow, removes a grinder with so little pain, that all the world 
should be made aware of him) — a fellow, I say, ashamed of the 
original from which he sprung, of the cab in which he drives, 
awkward, therefore affected and unnatural, can never hope or 
deserve to succeed in society. 

The great comfort of the society of great folks is, that they 
do not trouble themselves about your twopenny little person, 
as smaller persons do, but take you for what you are — a man 
kindly and good-natured, or witty and sarcastic, or learned and 
eloquent, or a good raconteur , or a very handsome man, (and in 
’15 some of the Browns were — but I am speaking of five-and- 
thirty years ago,) or an excellent gourmand and judge of wines 
— or what not. Nobody sets you so quickly at your ease as a 
fine gentleman. I have seen more noise made about a knight’s 
lady than about the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe herself : and 
Lady Mountararat, whose family dates from the Deluge, enters 
and leaves a room, with her daughters, the lovely Ladies Eve 
and Lilith D’Arc, with much less pretension and in much sim- 
pler capotes and what-do-you-call-’ems, than Lady de Mogyns 
or Mrs. Shindy, who quit an assembly in a whirlwind as it were, 
with trumpets and alarums like a stage king and queen. 

But my pen can run no further, for my paper is out, and it 
is time to dress for dinner. 


442 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


ON SOME OLD CUSTOMS OF THE DINNER-TABLE. 

Of all the sciences which have made a progress in late 
years, I think, dear Bob (to return to the subject from which I 
parted with so much pleasure last week), that the art of dinner- 
giving has made the most delightful and rapid advances. Sir, 

I maintain, even now with a matured age and appetite, that the 
dinners of this present day are better than those we had in our 
youth, and I can’t but be thankful at least once in every day 
for this decided improvement in our civilization. Those who 
remember the usages of five-and-twenty years back will be 
ready, I am sure, to acknowledge this progress.^ I was turning 
over at the Club yesterday a queer little book written at that 
period, which, I believe, had some authority at the time, and 
which records some of those customs which obtained, if not in 
good London society, at least in some companies, and parts of 
our islands. Sir, many of these practices seem as antiquated 
now as the usages described in the accounts of Homeric feasts, 
or Queen Elizabeth’s banquets and breakfasts. Let us be 
happy to think they are gone. 

The book in question is called “ The Maxims of Sir Mor- 
gan O’Doherty,” a queer baronet, who appears to have lived 
in the first quarter of the century, and whose opinions the anti- 
quarian may examine, not without profit — a strange barbarian 
indeed it is, and one wonders that such customs should ever 
have been prevalent in our country. 

Fancy such opinions as these having ever been holden by 
any set of men among us. Maxim 2. — “ It is laid down in 
fashionable life that you must drink Champagne after white 
cheeses, water after red. * * * Ale is to be avoided, in case a 
wet night is to be expected, as should cheese also. Maxim 4. 
— “A fine singer, after dinner, is to be avoided, for he is a 
great bore, and stops the wine. * * * One of the best rules ^ 
(to put him down) is to applaud him most vociferously as soon 
as he has sung the first verse, as if all was over, and say to the 
gentleman farthest from you at table that you admire the con- 
clusion of this song very much.” Maxim 25. — “You meet 
people occasionally who tell you it is bad taste to give Cham- 
pagne at dinner — Port and Teneriffe being such superior 
drinking,” &c., &c. I am copying out of a book printed three 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


443 


months since, describing ways prevalent when you were born. 
Can it be possible, I say, that England was ever in such a 
state ? 

Was it ever a maxim in “ fashionable life” that you were 
to drink champagne after white cheeses ? What was that 
maxim in fashionable life about drinking and about cheese ? 
The maxim in fashionable life is to drink what you will. It is 
too simple now to trouble itself about wine or about cheese. 
Ale again is to be avoided, this strange Doherty says, if you 
expect a wet night— and in another place he says “ the English 
drink a pint of porter at a draught.” — What English ? gracious 
powers! Are we a nation of coalheavers ? Do we ever have 
a wet night ? Do we ever meet people occasionally who say 
that to give Champagne at dinner is bad taste, and that Port 
and Teneriffe are such superior drinking? Fancy Teneriffe, 
my dear boy — I say fancy a man asking you to drink Teneriffe 
at dinner * the mind shudders at it — he might as well invite you 
to swallow the Peak. 

And then consider the maxim about the fine singer who is 
to be avoided. What ! was there a time in most people’s 
memory, when folks at dessert began to sing ? I have heard 
such a thing at a tenants’ dinner in the country ; but the idea 
of a fellow beginning to perform a song at a dinner-party in 
London fills my mind with terror and amazement ; and I pic- 
ture to myself any table which I frequent, in May Fair, in Blooms- 
bury, in Belgravia, or where you will, and the pain which would 
seize upon the host and the company if some wretch were to 
commence a song. 

We have passed that savage period of life. . We do not 
want to hear songs from guests, we have the songs done for 
us ; as we don’t want our ladies to go down into the kitchen 
and cook the dinner any more. The cook can do it better and 
cheaper. We do not desire feats of musical or culinary skill — 
but simple, quiet, easy, unpretending conversation. 

In like manner, there was a practice once usual, and which 
still lingers here and there, of making complimentary speeches 
after dinner ; that custom is happily almost entirely discon- 
tinued. Gentlemen do not meet to compliment each other pro- 
fusely, or to make fine phrases. Simplicity gains upon us 
daily. Let us be thankful that the florid style is disappearing. 

I once shared a bottle of sherry with a commercial traveller 
at Margate who gave a toast or a sentiment as he filled every 
glass. He would not take his wine without this queer cere- 
mony before it. I recollect one of his sentiments, which was 


444 


SKETCHES AND TRA EELS IN LONDON 


as follows : “ Year is to ’er that doubles our joys, and divides 
our sorrows — I give you woman, sir,” — and we both emptied 
our glasses. These lumbering ceremonials are passing out of 
our manners, and were found only to obstruct our free inter- 
course. People can like each other just as much without ora- 
tions, and be just as merry without being forced to drink 
against their will. 

And yet there are certain customs to which one clings still ; 
for instance, the practice of drinking wine with your neighbor, 
though wisely not so frequently indulged in as of old, yet still 
obtains, and I trust will never be abolished. For though, in 
the old time, when Mr. and Mrs. Fogy had sixteen friends to 
dinner, it became an unsupportable corvee for Mr. F. to ask 
sixteen persons to drink wine, and a painful task for Mrs. Fogy 
to be called upon to bow to ten gentlemen, who desired to 
have the honor to drink her health, yet, employed in modera- 
tion, that ancient custom of challenging your friends to drink 
is a kindly and hearty old usage, and productive of many 
most beneficial results. 

I have known a man of a modest and reserved turn (just 
like your old uncle, dear Bob, as no doubt you were going to 
remark), when asked to drink by the host, suddenly lighten up, 
toss off his glass, get confidence, and begin to talk right and 
left. He wanted but the spur to set him going. It is supplied 
by the butler at the back of his chair. 

It sometimes happens, again, that a host’s conversational 
powers are not brilliant. I own that I could point out a few 
such whom I have the honor to name among my friends — 
gentlemen, in fact, who wisely hold their tongues because they 
have nothing to say which is worth the hearing or the telling, 
and properly confine themselves to the carving of the mutton 
and the ordering of the wines. Such men, manifestly, should 
always be allowed, nay encouraged, to ask their guests to take 
wine. In putting that question, they show their good-will, and 
cannot possibly betray their mental deficiency. For example, 
let us suppose Jones, who has been perfectly silent all dinner- 
time, oppressed, doubtless, by that awful Lady Tiara, who sits 
swelling on his right hand, suddenly rallies, singles me out, and 
with a loud cheering voice cries, “ Brown my boy, a glass of 
wine.” I reply, “With pleasure, my dear Jones.” He re- 
sponds as quick as thought, “ Shall it be hock or champagne, 
Brown ? ” I mention the wine which I prefer. He calls to the 
butler, and says, “Some champagne or hock” (as the case may 
be, for I don’t choose to commit myself), — “ some champagne 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


445 


or hock to Mr. Brown;” and finally he says, “Good health!” 
in a pleasant tone. Thus you see, Jones, though not a conver- 
sationist, has had the opportunity of making no less than four 
observations, which, if not brilliant or witty, are yet manly, sen- 
sible, and agreeable. And I defy any man in the metropolis, 
be he the most accomplished, the most learned, the wisest, or 
the most eloquent, to say more than Jones upon a similar 
occasion. 

If you have had a difference with a man, and are desirous to 
make it up, how pleasant it is to take wine with him. Nothing 
is said but that simple phrase which has just been uttered by 
my friend Jones ; and yet it means a great deal. The cup is a 
symbol of reconciliation. The other party drinks up your good- 
will as you accept his token of returning friendship — and thus 
the liquor is hallowed which Jones has paid for: and I like to 
think that the grape which grew by Rhine or Rhone was born 
and ripened under the sun there, so as to be the means of 
bringing two good fellows together. I once heard the head 
physician of a Hydropathic establishment on the sunny banks 
of the first-named river, give the health of His Majesty the King 
of Prussia, and, calling upon the company to receive that august 
toast with a “ donnerndes Lebehoch,” toss off a bumper of 
sparkling water. It did not seem to me a genuine enthusiasm. 
No, no, let us have toast-and-wine, not toast-and-water. It was 
not in vain that grapes grew on the hills of Father Rhine. 

One seldom asks ladies now to take wine, — except when, in 
a confidential whisper to the charming creature whom you have 
brought down to dinner, you humbly ask permission to pledge 
her, and she delicately touches her glass, with a fascinating 
smile, in reply to your glance, — a smile, you rogue, which goes 
to your heart. I say, one does not ask ladies any more to take 
wine : and I think, this custom being abolished, the contrary 
practice should be introduced, and that the ladies should ask 
the gentlemen. I know one who did, une grande dame de par le 
monde , as honest Brantome phrases it, and from whom I de- 
served no such kindness ; but, sir, the effect of that graceful act 
of hospitality was such, that she made a grateful slave forever 
of one who was an admiring rebel previously, who would do 
anything to show his gratitude, and who now knows no greater 
' delight than when he receives a card which bears her respected 
name.* 

A dinner of men is well now and again, but few well-regu- 
lated minds relish a dinner without women. There are some 

* Upon my word, Mr- Brown, this is tpo broad a hint. — Punch . 


446 SKE TCHES AND TEA EELS' IN LONDON 

wretches who, I believe, still meet together for the sake of what 
is called “ the spread,” who dine each other round and round, 
and have horrid delights in turtle, early pease, and other eulh 
nary luxuries — but I pity the condition as I avoid the banquets 
of those men. The only substitute for ladies at dinners, or 
consolation for want of them, is — smoking. Cigars, introduced 
with the coffee, do, if anything can, make us forget the absence 
of the other sex. But what a substitute is that for her who 
doubles our joys, and divides our griefs ! for woman I as my 
friend the Traveller said. 


GREAT AND LITTLE DINNERS. 

It has been said, dear Bob, that I have seen the mahoganies 
of many men, and it is with no small feeling of pride and grati- 
tude that I am enabled to declare also, that I hardly remember 
in my life to have had a bad dinner. Would to heaven that 
all mortal men could say likewise ! Indeed, and in the presence 
of so much want and misery as pass under our ken daily, it is 
with a feeling of something like shame and humiliation that I 
make the avowal ; but I have robbed no man of his meal that 
I know of, and am here speaking of very humble as well as very 
grand banquets, the which I maintain are, when there is a 
sufficiency, almost always good. 

Yes, all dinners are good, from a shilling upwards. The 
plate of boiled beef which Mary, the neat-handed waitress, 
brings or used to bring you in the. Old Bailey — I say used, for, 
ah me ! I speak of years long past, when the cheeks, of Mary 
were as blooming as the carrots which she brought up with the 
beef, and she may be a grandmother by this time, or a pallid 
ghost, far out of the regions of beef ; — from the shilling dinner 
of beef and carrots to the grandest banquet of the season — 
everything is good. There are no degrees in egting. I mean 
that mutton is as good as venison — beefsteak, if you are hungry, 
as good as turtle — bottled ale, if you like it, to the full as good 
as champagne there is no delicacy in the world which Mon- 
sieur Francatelli or Monsieur Soy'er can produce, which I 
believe to be better than toasted cheese. I have seen a dozen 
of epicures at a grand table forsake every French and Italian 
delicacy for boiled leg of pork and pease pudding. You can 
but be hungry, and eat and be happy. 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


447 


What is the moral I would deduce from this truth, if truth 
5t be ? I would have a great deal more hospitality practised 
than is common among us — more hospitality and less show. 
Properly considered, the quality of dinner is twice blest ; it 
blesses him that gives, and him that takes : a dinner with friend- 
liness is the best of all friendly meetings — a pompous entertain- 
ment, where no love is, the least satisfactory. 

Why, then, do we of the middle classes persist in giving 
entertainments so costly, and beyond our means? This will 
be read by many mortals, who are aware that they live on leg 
of mutton themselves, or worse than this, have what are called 
meat teas, than which I cannot conceive a more odious custom ; 
that ordinarily they are very sober in their way of life ; that 
they like in reality that leg of mutton better than the condi- 
ments of that doubtful French artist who comes from the pas- 
try cook’s, and presides over the mysterious stewpans in the 
kitchen ; why, then, on their company dinners, should they flare 
up in the magnificent manner in which they universally do ? 

Everybody has the same dinner in London, and the same 
soup, saddle of mutton, boiled fowls and tongue, entrees, cham- 
pagne, and so forth. I own myself to being no better nor worse 
than my neighbors in this respect, and rush off to the confec- 
tioners’ for sweets, &c. ; hire sham butlers and attendants ; have 
a fellow going round the table with still and dry champagne, as 
; if I knew his name, and it was my custom to drink those wines 
every day of my life. I am as bad as my neighbors : but why 
are we so bad, I ask ? — why are we not more reasonable ? 

If we receive very great men or ladies at our houses, I will 
lay a wager that they will select mutton and gooseberry tart 
; for their dinner : forsaking the entrees which the men in white 
- Berlin gloves are handing round in the Birmingham plated 
dishes. Asking lords and ladies, who have great establish- 
I ments of their own, to French dinners and delicacies, is like 
inviting a grocer to a meal of figs, or a pastry-cook to a banquet 
of raspberry tarts. They have had enough of them. And 
great folks, if they like you, take no count of your feasts, and 
grand preparations, and can but eat mutton like men. 

One cannot have sumptuary laws nowadays, or restrict the 
gastronomical more than any other trade: but I wish a check 
could be put upon our dinner extravagances by some means, 
and am confident that the pleasures of life would greatly be 
increased by moderation. A man might give two dinners for 
one, according to the present pattern. Half your money is 
swallowed up in a dessert, which nobody wants in the least* 


448 SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 

and which I always grudge to see arriving at the end of plenty. 
Services of culinary kickshaws swallow up money, and give 
nobody pleasure, except the pastry-cook, whom they enrich. 
Everybody entertains as if he had three or four thousand a year. 

Some one with a voice potential should cry out against this 
overwhelming luxury. What is mere decency in a very wealthy 
man is absurdity — nay, wickedness in a poor one : a frog by 
nature, I am an insane, silly creature, to attempt to swell my- 
self to the size of the ox, my neighbor. Oh, that I could estab- 
lish in the middle classes of London an Ant \-entree and Anti-Des- 
sert movement ! I would go down to posterity not ill-deserving 
of my country in such a case, and might be ranked among the 
social benefactors. Let us have a meeting at Willis’s Rooms, 
Ladies and Gentlemen, for the purpose, and get a few philan- 
thropists, philosophers, and bishops or so, to speak ! As peo- 
ple, in former days, refused to take sugar, let us get up a society 
which shall decline to eat dessert and made dishes.* 

In this way, I say, every man who now gives a dinner might 
give two ; and take in a host of poor friends and relatives, who 
are now excluded from his hospitality. For dinners are given 
mostly in the middle classes by the way of revenge ; and Mr. 
and Mrs. Thompson ask Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, because the 
latter have asked them. A man at this rate who gives four 
dinners of twenty persons in the course of the season, each 
dinner costing him something very near upon thirty pounds, 
receives in return, we will say, forty dinners from the friends 
whom he has himself invited. That is, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson 
pay a hundred and twenty pounds, as do all their friends, for 
forty-four dinners of which they partake. So that they may 
calculate that every time they dine with their respective friends, 
they pay out twenty-eight shillings per tete. What a sum this 
is, dear Johnson, for you and me to spend upon our waistcoats ! 
What does poor Mrs. Johnson care for all these garish splen- 
dors, who has had her dinner at two with her dear children in 
the nursery ? Our custom is not hospitality or pleasure, but 
to be able to cut off a certain number of acquaintance from the 
dining list. 

One of these dinners of twenty, again, is scarcely ever 
pleasant as far as regards society. You may chance to get 
near a pleasant neighbor and neighboress, when your corner of 
the table is possibly comfortable. But there can be no general 
conversation. Twenty people cannot engage together in talk. 

* Mr. Brown here enumerates three entrees , which he confesses he can -not resist, and 
likewise preserved cherries at dessert : but the principle is good, though the man is weak. 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


449 


You would want a speaking-trumpet to communicate from your 
place by the lady of the house (for I wish to give my respected 
reader the place of honor) to the lady at the opposite corner at 
the right of the host. If you have a joke or a mot to make, you 
cannot utter it before such a crowd. A joke is nothing which 
can only get a laugh out of a third part of the company. The 
most eminent wags of my acquaintance are dumb in these great 
parties ; and your raconteur or story-teller, if he is prudent, will 
invariably hold his tongue. For what can be more odious than 
to be compelled to tell a story at the top of your voice, to be 
called on to repeat it for the benefit of a distant person who 
has only heard a portion of the anecdote ? There are stories of 
mine which would fail utterly, were they narrated in any but an 
undertone ; others in which I laugh, am overcome by emotion, 
and so forth — what I call my intimes stories. Now it is impossi- 
ble to do justice to these except in the midst of a general hush, 
and in a small circle ; so that I am commonly silent. And as 
no anecdote is positively new in a party of twenty, the ‘chances 
are so much against you that somebody should have heard the 
story before, in which case you are done. 

In these large assemblies, a wit, then, is of no use, and does 
not have a chance : a raconteur does not get a fair hearing, and 
both of these real ornaments of a dinner-table are thus utterly 
thrown away. I have seen Jack Jolliffe, who can keep a table 
of eight or ten persons in a roar of laughter for four hours, re- 
main utterly mute in a great entertainment, smothered by the 
numbers and the dowager on each side of him : and Tom Yar- 
nold, the most eminent of conversationists, sit through a dinner 
as dumb as the footman behind him. They do not care to joke, 
unless there is a sympathizing society, and prefer to be silent 
rather than throw their good things away. 

What I would recommend, then, with all my power, is, that 
dinners should be more simple, more frequent, and should con- 
tain fewer persons. Ten is the utmost number that a man of 
moderate means should ever invite to his table ; although in a 
great house, managed by a great establishment, the case may 
be different. A man and woman may look as if they were glad 
to see ten people : but in a great dinner they abdicate their 
position as host and hostess, — are mere creatures in the hands 
of the sham butlers, sham footmen, and tall confectioners’ emis- 
saries who crowd the room, — and are guests at their own table, 
where they are helped last, and of which they occupy the top 
and bottom. I have marked many a lady watching with timid 
glances the large artificial major-domo , who officiates for that 

2 ^ 


45 ° 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


night only, and thought to myself, “ Ah, my dear madam, how 
much happier might we all be if there were but half the splen- 
dor, half the made dishes, and half the company assembled.” 

If any dinner-giving person who reads this shall be induced 
by my representations to pause in his present career, to cut off 
some of the luxuries of his table, and instead of giving one 
enormous feast to twenty persons to have three simple dinners 
for ten, my dear Nephew will not have been addressed in vain. 
Everybody will be bettered ; and while the guests will be bet- 
ter pleased, and more numerous, the host will actually be left 
with money in his pocket. 


ON LOVE, MARRIAGE, MEN, AND WOMEN. 

i. 

Bob Brown is in love, then, undergoing the common lot ! 
And so, my dear lad, you are this moment enduring the delights 
and tortures, the jealousy and wakefulness, the longing and 
raptures, the frantic despair and elation, attendant upon the 
passion of love. In the year 1812 (it was before I contracted 
my alliance with your poor dear Aunt, who never caused me 
any of the disquietudes above enumerated,) I myself went 
through some of those miseries and pleasures which you now, 

0 my Nephew, are enduring. I pity and sympathize with you. 

1 am an old cock now, with a feeble strut and a faltering crow. 

But I was young once : and remember the time very well. 
Since that time, amavi amantes : if I see two young people 
happy, I like it, as I like to see children enjoying a pantomime. 
I have been the confidant of numbers of honest fellows, and 
the secret watcher of scores of little pretty intrigues in life. 
Miss Y., I know why you go so eagerly to balls now, and Mr. 
Z., what has set you off dancing at your mature age. Do you 
fancy, Miss Alpha, that I believe you walk every day at half-past 
eleven by the Serpentine for nothing, and that I don’t see young 
O’Mega in Rotten Row ? * * * * And so my poor Bob, 

you are shot. 

If you lose the object of your desires, the loss won’t kill 
you ; you may set that down as a certainty. If you win, it is 
possible that you will be disappointed ; that point also is to be 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


45 1 

considered. But hit or miss, good luck or bad — I should be 
sorry, my honest Bob, that thou didst not undergo the malady. 
Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to 
have a smart attack of the fever. You are the better for it 
when it is over : the better for your misfortune if you endure it 
with a manly heart ; how much the better for success if you 
win it and a good wife into the bargain ! Ah ! Bob — there is 
a stone in the burying-ground at Funchal which I often and 
often think of — many hopes and passions lie beneath it, along 
with the fairest and gentlest creature in the world — it’s not 
Mrs. Brown that lies there. After life’s fitful fever she sleeps 
in Marylebone burying-ground, poor dear soul ! Emily Blenk- 
insop might have been Mrs. Brown, but — but let us change the 
subject. 

Of course you will take advice, my dear Bob, about your 
flame. All men and women do. It is notorious that they 
listen to the opinions of all their friends, and never follow their 
own counsel. Well, tell us about this girl. What are her 
qualifications, expectations, belongings, station in life, and so 
forth? 

About beauty I do not argue. I take it for granted. A 
man sees beauty or that which he likes, with eyes entirely his 
own. I don’t say that plain women get husbands as readily as 
the pretty girls — but so many handsome girls are unmarried, 
and so many of the other sort wedded, that there is no possi- 
bility of establishing a rule, or of setting up a standard. Poor 
dear Mrs. Brown was a far finer woman than Emily Blenkin- 
sop, and yet I loved Emily’s little finger more than the whole 
hand which your Aunt Martha gave me — I see the plainest 
women exercising the greatest fascinations over men — in fine, 
a man falls in love with a woman because it is fate, because 
she is a woman ; Bob, too, is a man, and endowed with a heart 
and a beard. 

Is she a clever woman ? I do not mean to disparage you, 
my good fellow, but you are not a man that is likely to set the 
Thames on fire ; and I should rather like to . see you fall to the 
lot of a clever woman. A set has been made against clever 
women in all times. Take all Shakspeare’s heroines — they all 
j seem to me pretty much the same — affectionate, motherly, 
tender, that sort of thing. Take Scott’s ladies, and other 
. writers’ — each man seems to draw from one model — an exquisite 
slave is what we want for the most part ; a humble, flattering, 
smiling, child-loving, tea-making, pianoforte-playing being, who 
laughs at our jokes, however old they may be, coaxes and 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


45 2 

wheedles us in our humors, and fondly lies to us through life 
I never could get your poor Aunt into this system, though I 
confess I should have been a happier man had she tried it. 

There are many more clever women in the world than men 
think for. Our habit is to despise them ; we* believe they do 
not think because they do not contradict us ; and are weak 
because they do not struggle and rise up against us. A man 
only begins to know women as he grows old ; and for my part 
my opinion of their cleverness rises every day. 

When I say I know women, I mean I know that I don’t 
know them. Every single woman I ever knew is a puzzle to 
me, as I have no doubt she is to herself. Say they are not 
clever ? Their hypocrisy is a perpetual marvel to me, and a 
constant exercise of cleverness of the finest sort. You see a 
demure-looking woman perfect in all her duties, constant in 
house-bills and shirt-buttons, obedient to her lord, and anxious 
to please him in all things; silent when you and he talk politics, 
or literature, or balderdash together, and if referred to, saying, 
with a smile of perfect humility, “ Oh, women are not judges 
upon such and such matters ; we leave learning and politics to 
men.” “ Yes, poor Polly,” says Jones, patting the back of 
Mrs. J.’s head good-naturedly, “ attend to the house, my dear ; 
that’s the best thing you can do, and . leave the rest to us.” 
Benighted idiot ! She has long ago taken your measure and 
your friends’ ; she knows your weaknesses and ministers to them 
in a thousand artful ways. She knows your obstinate points, 
and marches round them with the most curious art and pa- 
tience, as you will see an ant on a journey turn round an ob- 
stacle. Every woman manages her husband : every person 
who manages another is a hypocrite. Her smiles, her submis- 
sion, her good-humor, for all which we value her, — what are 
they but admirable duplicity ? We expect falseness from her, 
and order and educate her to be dishonest. Should he up- 
braid, I’ll own that he prevail ; say that he frown, I’ll answer 
with a smile ; — what are these but lies, that we exact from our 
slaves ? — lies, the dexterous performance of which we announce 
to be the female virtues : brutal Turks that we are ! I do not 
say that Mrs. Brown ever obeyed me — on the contrary : but I 
should have liked it, for I am a Turk like my neighbor. 

I will instance your mother now. When my brother comes 
in to dinner after a bad day’s sport, or after looking over the 
bills of some of you boys, he naturally begins to be surly with 
your poor dear mother, and to growl at the mutton. What 
does she do ? She may be hurt, but she doesn’t show it. She 


SKETCHES AND TEA FEES IN LONDON. 


453 


proceeds to coax, to smile, to turn the conversation, to stroke 
down Bruin, and get him in a good-humor. She sets him on 
his old stories, and she and all the girls — poor dear little Sap* 
phiras ! — set off laughing ; there is that story about the Goose 
walking into church, which your father tells, and your mother 
and sisters laugh at, until I protest I am so ashamed that I 
hardly know where to look. On he goes with that story time 
after time : and your poor mother sits there and knows that I 
know she is a humbug, and laughs on ; and teaches ail the 
girls to laugh too. Had that dear creature been born to wear 
a nose-ring and bangles instead of a muff and bonnet; and 
had she a brown skin in the place of that fair one with which 
Nature has endowed her, she would have done Suttee, after 
your brown Brahmin father had died, and thought women very 
irreligious too, who refused to roast themselves for their mas- 
ters and lords. I do not mean to say that the late Mrs. Brown 
would have gone through the process of incremation for me — 
far from it : by a timely removal she was spared from the grief 
which her widowhood would have doubtless caused her, and I 
acquiesce in the decrees of Fate in this instance, and have not 
the least desire to have preceded her. 

I hope the ladies will not take my remarks in ill part. If 
I die for it, I must own that I don’t think they have fair play. 
In the bargain we make with them I don’t think they get their 
rights. And as a laborer notoriously does more by the piece 
than he does by the day, and a free man works harder than a 
slave, so I doubt whether we get the most out of our women 
by enslaving them as we do by law and custom. There are 
some folks who would limit the range of women’s duties to 
little more than a kitchen range — others who like them to 
administer to our delectation in a ball-room, and permit them 
to display dimpled shoulders and flowing ringlets — just as 
you have one horse for a mill, and another for the park. But 
in whatever way we may like them, it is for our use somehow 
that we have women brought up ; to work for us, or to shine for 
us, or to dance for us, or what not ? It would not have been 
thought shame of our fathers fifty years ago, that they could not 
make a custard or a pie, but our mothers would have been re- 
buked had they been ignorant on these matters. Why should not 
you and I be ashamed now because we cannot make our own 
shoes, or cut out our own breeches ? We know better : we can 
get cobblers and tailors to do that — and it was we who made 
the laws for women, who, we are in the habit of saying, are 
not so clever as we are. 


4 54 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


My dear Nephew, as I grow old and consider these things. 
I know which are the stronger, men or women ; but which 
are the cleverer, I doubt. 


ii. 

Long years ago, indeed it was at the Peace of Amiens, 
when with several other young bucks I was making the grand 
tour, I recollect how sweet we all of us were upon the lovely 
Duchess of Montepulciano at Naples, who, to be sure, was 
not niggardly of her smiles in return. There came a man 
amongst us, however, from London, a very handsome young 
fellow, with such an air of fascinating melancholy in his looks, 
that he cut out all the other suitors of the Duchess in the 
course of a week, and would have married her very likely, 
but that war was declared while this youth was still hankering 
about his Princess, and he was sent off to Verdun, whence he 
did not emerge for twelve years, and until he was as fat as a 
porpoise, and the Duchess was long since married to General 
Count Raff, one of the Emperor’s heroes. 

I mention poor Tibbits to show the curious difference of 
manner which exists among us ; and which, though not visi- 
ble to foreigners, is instantly understood by English people. 
Brave, clever, tall, slim, dark, and sentimental - looking, he 
passed muster in a foreign saloon, and as I must own to you, 
cut us fellows out : whereas we English knew instantly that the 
man was not well-bred, by a thousand little signs, not to be 
understood by the foreigner. In his early youth, for instance, 
he had been cruelly deprived of his Ns by his parents, and 
though he tried to replace them in after life, they were no more 
natural than a glass eye, but stared at you as it were in a 
ghastly manner out of the conversation, and pained you by 
their horrid intrusions. Not acquainted with these refinements 
of our language, foreigners did not understand what Tibbits’ 
errors were, and doubtless thought it was from envy that we 
conspired to slight the poor fellow. 

I mention Mr. Tibbits, because he was handsome, clever, 
honest, and brave, and in almost all respects our superior ; and 
yet labored under disadvantages of manner which unfitted him 
for certain society. It is not Tibbits the man, it is not Tibbits 
the citizen, of whom I would wish to speak lightly ; his morals, 
his reading, his courage, his generosity, his talents are un- 
doubted — it is the social Tibbits of whom I speak : and as I do 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


455 


not go to balls, because I do not dance, or to meetings of the 
Political Economy Club, or other learned associations, because 
taste and education have not fitted me for the pursuits for 
which other persons are adapted, so Tibbits’ sphere is not in 
drawing-rooms, where the h , and other points of etiquette, are 
rigorously maintained. 

I say thus much because one or two people have taken some 
remarks of mine in ill part, and hinted that I am a Tory in dis- 
guise : and an aristocrat that should be hung up to a lamp-post. 
Not so, dear Bob; — there is nothing like the truth, about 
whomsoever it may be. I mean no more disrespect towards 
any fellow-man by saying that he is not what is called in So- 
ciety well-bred, than by stating that he is not tall or short, or 
that he cannot dance, or that he does not know Hebrew, or 
whatever the case may be. I mean that if a man works with a 
pickaxe or shovel all day, his hands will be harder than those 
of a lady of fashion, and that his opinion about Madame Son- 
tag’s singing, or the last new novel, will not probably be of 
much value. And though I own my conviction that there are 
some animals which frisk advantageously in ladies’ drawing- 
rooms, v/hilst others pull stoutly at the plough, I do not most 
certainly mean to reflect upon a horse for not being a lap-dog, 
or see that he has any cause to be ashamed that he is other 
than a horse. 

And, in a word, as you are what is called a gentleman your- 
self, I hope that Mrs. Bob Brown, whoever she may be, is not 
only by nature, but by education, a gentlewoman. No man 
ought ever to be called upon to blush for his wife. I see good 
men rush into marriage with ladies of whom they are afterwards 
ashamed ; and in the same manner charming women linked to 
partners, whose vulgarity they try to screen. Poor Mrs. Boti- 
bol, what a constant hypocrisy your life is, and how you insist 
upon informing everybody that Botibol is the best of men ! 
Poor Jack Jinkins ! what a female is that you brought back 
from Bagnigge Wells to introduce to London society ! a hand- 
some, tawdry, flaunting, watering-place belle ; a boarding-house 
beauty : tremendous in brazen ornaments and cheap finery. 

If you marry, dear Bob, I hope Mrs. Robert B. will be a 
lady not very much above or below your own station. 

I would sooner that you should promote- your wife than that 
she should advance you. And though every man can point 
you out instances where his friends have been married to ladies 
of superior rank, who have accepted their new position with 
perfect grace, and made their husbands entirely happy ; a§ 


456 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 

there are examples of maid-servants decorating coronets, and 
sempstresses presiding worthily over Baronial Halls ; yet I hope 
Mrs. Robert Brown will not come out of a palace or a kitchen : 
but out of a house something like yours, out of a family some- 
thing like yours, with a snug jointure something like that 
modest portion which I dare say you w ;l l inherit. 

I remember when Arthur Rowdy (who I need not tell you 
belongs to the firm of Stumpy, Rowdy & Co., of Lombard Street, 
Bankers,) married Lady Cleopatra ; what a grand match it was 
thought by the Rowdy family : and how old Mrs. Rowdy in 
Portman Square was elated at the idea of her son’s new con- 
nection. Her daughters were to go to all the parties in Lon- 
don ; and her house was to be filled with the very greatest of 
great folks. We heard of nothing but dear Lady Stonehenge 
from morning till night ; and the old frequenters of the house 
were perfectly pestered with stories of dear Lady Zenobia and 
dear Lady Cornelia, and of the dear Marquis, whose masterly 
translation of Cornelius Nepos had placed him among the most 
learned of our nobility. 

When Rowdy went to live in May Fair, what a wretched 
house it was into which he introduced such of his friends as 
were thought worthy of presentation to his new society ! The 
rooms were filled with young dandies of the Stonehenge connec- 
tion — beardless bucks from Downing Street, gay young sprigs 
of the Guards — their sisters and mothers, their kith and kin. 
They overdrew their accounts at Rowdy’s Bank, and laughed 
at him in his drawing-room ; they made their bets and talked 
their dandy talk over his claret, at which the poor fellow sat 
quite silent. Lady Stonehenge invaded his nursery, appointed 
and cashiered his governess and children’s maids ; established 
her apothecary in permanence over him : quarrelled with old 
Mrs. Rowdy, so that the poor old body was only allowed to see 
her grandchildren by stealth, and have secret interviews with 
them in the garden of Berkeley Square ; made Rowdy take 
villas at Tunbridge, which she filled with her own family ; 
massacred her daughter’s visiting-book, in the which Lady 
Cleopatra, a good-natured woman, at first admitted some of her 
husband’s relatives and acquaintance ; and carried him abroad 
upon excursions, in which all he had to do was to settle the 
bills with the courier. And she went so far as to order him 
to change his side of the House and his politics, and adopt 
those of Lord Stonehenge, which were of the age of the Druids, 
his lordship’s ancestors ; but here the honest British merchant 
made a stand and conquered his mother-in-law, who would have 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


457 


smothered him the other day for voting for Rothschild. If it 
were not for the Counting-House in the morning and the House 
of Commons at night, what would become of Rowdy ? They 
say he smokes there, and drinks when he smokes. He has been 
known to go to Vauxhall, and has even been seen, with a com- 
forter over his nose, listening to Sam Hall at the Cider Cellars. 
All this misery and misfortune came to the poor fellow for 
marrying out of his degree. The clerks at Lombard Street laugh 
when Lord Mistletoe steps out of his cab and walks into the 
bank parlor ; and Rowdy’s private account invariably tells tales 
of the visit of his young scapegrace of a brother-in-law. 


hi. 

Let us now, beloved and ingenious youth, take the other 
side of the question, and discourse a little while upon the state 
of that man who takes unto himself a wife inferior to him in 
degree. I have before me in my acquaintance many most 
pitiable instances of individuals who have made this fatal 
mistake. 

Although old fellows are as likely to be made fools as young 
in love matters, and Dan Cupid has no respect for the most ven- 
erable age, yet I remark that it is generally the young men who 
marry vulgar wives. They are on a reading tour for the Long 
Vacation, they are quartered at Ballinafad, they see Miss Smith 
or Miss O’Shaughnessy every day, healthy, lively, jolly girls with 
red cheeks, bright eyes, and high spirits — they some away at 
the end of the vacation, or when the regimen c changes its 
quarters, engaged men, family rows ensue, mothers cry out, 
papas grumble, Miss pines and loses her health at Baymouth or 
Ballinafad — consent is got at last, Jones takes his degree, Jen- 
kins gets his company ; Miss Smith and Miss O’Shaughnessy 
become Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Jenkins. 

For the first year it is all very well. Mrs. Jones is a great 
bouncing handsome creature, lavishly fond of the adored Jones, 
and caring for no other company but his. They have a cot- 
tage at Bayswater. He walks her out every evening. He sits 
and reads the last new novel to her whilst she works slippers 
I for him, or makes some little tiny caps, and — dear Julia, dear 
i Edward ! — they are all in all to one another. 

Old Mrs. Smith of course comes up from Swansea at the 
! time when the little caps are put into requisition, and takes 
possession of the cottage at Bayswater. Mrs. Jones Senior 


458 SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 

calls upon Mrs. Edward Jones’s mamma, and, of course, is desir- 
ous to do everything that is civil to the family of Edward’s wife. 

Mrs. Jones finds in the mother-in-law of her Edward a large 
woman with a cotton umbrella, who dines in the middle of the 
day, and has her beer, and who calls Mrs. Jones Mum. What 
a state they are in at Pocklington Square about this woman ! 
How can they be civil to her ? Whom can they ask to meet 
her ? How the girls, Edward’s sisters, go on about her ! 
Fanny says she ought to be shown to the housekeeper's room 
when she calls ; Mary proposes that Mrs. Shay, the washer- 
woman, should be invited on the day when Mrs. Smith comes to 
dinner ; and Emma (who was Edward’s favorite sister, and who 
considers herself jilted by his. marriage with Julia,) points 
out the most dreadful thing of all, that Mrs. Smith and Julia 
are exactly alike, and that in a few years Mrs. Edward Jones 
will be the very image of that great enormous unwieldly hor- 
rid old woman. 

Closeted with her daughter, of whom and of her baby she 
has taken possession, Mrs. Smith gives her opinion about the 
Joneses : — They may be very good, but they are too fine ladies 
for her ; and they evidently think she is not good enough for 
them : they are sad worldly people, and have never sat under a 
good minister, that is clear : they talked French before her on 
the day she called in Pocklington Gardens, “ and though they 
were laughing at me, Pm sure I can pardon them, Mrs. Smith 
says. Edward and Julia have a little altercation about the 
manner in which his family has treated Mrs. Smith, and Julia, 
bursting into tears as she clasps the child to her bosom, says, 
“ My child, my child, will you be taught to be ashamed of your 
mother ! ” 

Edward flings out of the room in a rage. It is true that 
Mrs. Smith is not fit to associate with his family, and that her 
manners are not like theirs ; that Julia’s eldest brother, who is 
a serious tanner at Cardiff, is not a pleasant companion after 
dinner; and that it is not agreeable to be called “Ned” and 
“ Old Cove ” by her younger brother, who is an attorney’s clerk 
in Gray’s Inn, and favors Ned by asking him to lend him a 
“ Sov.,” and by coming to dinner on Sundays. It is true the 
appearance of that youth at the first little party the Edward 
Joneses gave after their marriage, when Natty disgracefully 
inebriated himself, caused no little scandal amongst his friends, 
and much wrath on the part of old Jones, who said, “ That little 
scamp called my daughters by their Christian names ! — a little 
beggar that is not fit to sit down in my hall. If ever he dares to 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


459 


call at my house I’ll tell Jobbins to fling a pail of water over 
him. And it is true that Natty called many times in Pocklington 
Square, and complained to Edward that he, Nat, could neither 
see his Mar nor the Gurls, and that the old gent cut up un- 
common stiff. 

So you see Edward Jones has had his way and got a hand- 
some wife, but at what expense ? He and his family are sep- 
arated. His wife brought him nothing but good looks. Her 
stock of brains is small. She is not easy in the new society 
into which she has been brought, and sits quite mum both at 
the grand parties which the old Joneses give in Pocklington 
Square and at the snug little entertainments which poor Edward 
Jones tries on his own part. The women of the Jones’ set 
try her in every way, and can get no good from her : Jones’s 
male friends, who are civilized beings, talk to her, and receive 
only monosyllables in reply. His house is a stupid one ; his 
acquaintances drop off ; he has no circle at all at last, ex- 
cept, to be sure, that increasing family circle which brings up 
old Mrs. Smith from Swansea every year. 

What is the lot of a man at the end of a dozen years who 
has a wife like this ? She is handsome no longer, and she 
never had any other merit. He can’t read novels to her all 
through his lite, while she is working slippers — it is absurd. He 
can’t be philandering in Kensington Gardens with a lady who 
does not walk out now except with two nursemaids and the twins 
in a go-cart. He is a young man still, when she is an old woman. 
Love is a mighty fine thing, dear Bob, but it is not the life of a 
man. There are a thousand other things for him to think of 
besides the red lips of Lucy, or the bright eyes of Eliza. There 
is business, there is friendship, there is society, there are taxes, 
there is ambition, and the manly desire to exercise the talents 
which are given us by heaven, and reap the prize of our 
desert. There are other books in a man’s library besides 
Ovid ; and after dawdling ever so long at a woman’s knee, 
one day he gets up and is free. We have all been there : we 
have all had the fever : the strongest and the smallest, from 
Samson, Hercules, Rinaldo, downwards ; but it burns out, and 
you get well. 

Ladies who read this, and who know what a love I have 
for the whole sex, will not, I hope, cry out at the above obser- 
vations, or be angry because I state that the ardor of love de- 
clines after a certain period. My dear Mrs. Hopkins, you 
would not have Hopkins to carry on the same absurd behavior 
which he exhibited when he was courting you ? or in place of 


460 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

going to bed and to sleep comfortably, sitting up half the night 
to write to you bad verses ? You would not have him racked 
with jealousy if you danced or spoke with any one else at a ball ; 
or neglect all his friends, his business, his interest in life, in 
order to dangle at your feet ? No, you are a sensible woman ; 
you know that he must go to his counting-house, that he must 
receive and visit his friends, and that he must attend to his and 
your interest in life. You are no longer his goddess, his fairy, 
his peerless paragon, whose name he shouted as Don Quixote 
did that of Dulcinea . You are Jane Hopkins, you are thirty 
years old, you have got a parcel of children, and Hop loves you 
and them with all his heart. He would be a helpless driveller 
and ninny were he to be honeymooning still, whereas he is a 
good honest fellow, respected on ’Change, liked by his friends, 
and famous for his port-wine. 

Yes, Bob, the fever goes, but the wife doesn’t. Long after 
your passion is over, Mrs. Brown will be at your side, good 
soul, still ; and it is for that, as I trust, long subsequent period 
of my worthy Bob’s life, that I am anxious. How will she look 
when the fairy brilliancy of the honeymoon has faded into the 
light of common day ? 

You are of a jovial and social turn, and like to see the 
world, as why should you not ? It contains a great number of 
kind and honest folks, from whom you may hear a thousand 
things wise and pleasant. A man ought to like his neighbors, 
to mix with his neighbors, to be popular with his neighbors. 
It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends. You can’t be 
talking to Mrs. Brown forever and ever : you will be a couple 
of old geese if you do. 

She ought then to be able to make your house pleasant to 
your friends. She ought to attract them to it by her grace, her 
good-breeding, her good-humor. Let it be said of her, “ What 
an uncommon nice woman Mrs. Brown is ! ’ Let her be, if 
not a clever woman, an appreciator of cleverness in others, 
which, perhaps, clever folks like better. Above all, let her 
have a sense of humor, my dear Bob, for a woman without a 
laugh in her (like the late excellent Mrs. Brown) is the greatest 
bore in existence. Life without laughing is a dreary blank. A 
woman who cannot laugh is a wet blanket on the kindly nuptial 
couch. A good laugh is sunshine in a house. A quick intelli- 
gence, a brightening eye, a kind smile, a cheerful spirit, — 
these, I hope, Mrs. Bob will bring to you in her trousseau , to 
be used afterwards for daily wear. Before all things, my dear 
Nephew, try and have a cheerful wife. 


SKETCHES A HD TRA VELS IN LONDON. 46 x 

What, indeed, does not that word “ cheerfulness ’* imply ? 
It means a contented spirit, it means a pure heart, it means a 
kind and loving disposition ; it means humility and charity • it 
means a generous appreciation of others, and a modest opinion 
of self. Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, 
are always pompous and self-conceited j that is, bigoted ; that is, 
cruel ; that is, ungentle, uncharitable, unchristian. Have a 
good, jolly, laughing, kind woman, then, for your partner, you 
who afe yourself a kind and jolly fellow ; and when you go to 
sleep, and when you wake, I pray there may be a smile under 
each of vour honest nightcaps. 


OUT OF TOWN. 

1. 

I have little news, my dear Bob, wherewith to entertain 
thee from this City, from which almost everybody has fled 
within the last week, and which lies in a state of torpor. I 
wonder what the newspapers find to talk about day after day, 
and how they come out every morning. But for a little distant 
noise of cannonading from the Danube and the Theiss, the 
whole world is silent, and London seems to have hauled down 
her flag, as her Majesty has done at Pimlico, and the Queen of 
cities has gone out of town. 

You, in pursuit of Miss Kicklebury, are probably by this 
time at Spa or Homburg. Watch her well, Bob, and see what 
her temper is like. See whether she flirts with the foreigners 
much, examine how she looks of a morning (you will have a 
hundred opportunities of familiarity, and can drop in and out 
of a friend’s apartments at a German watering-place as yon 
never can hope to do here), examine her conduct with her little 
sisters, if they are of the party, whether she is good and playful 
with them, see whether she is cheerful and obedient to old 
Lady Kick (I acknowledge a hard task) — in fine, try her man- 
ners and temper, and see whether she wears them all day, and 
only puts on her smiles with her fresh bonnet, to come out on 
the parade at music time. I, meanwhile, remain behind, alone 
in our airy and great Babylon. 

As an old soldier when he gets to his ground begins straight- 
way d se cascr , as the French say, makes the most of his 


462 


SKETCHES AND TEA EELS IN LONDON 


circumstances, and himself as comfortable as he can, an old 
London man, if obliged to pass the dull season in town, accom- 
modates himself to the time, and forages here and there in the 
deserted city, and manages to make his own tent snug. A 
thousand means of comfort and amusement spring up, whereof 
a man has no idea of the existence, in the midst of the din and 
racket of the London season. I, for my part, am grown to 
that age, sir, when I like the quiet time the best : the gayety of 
the great London season is too strong and noisy for me ; I like 
to talk to my beloved metropolis when she has done dancing 
at crowded balls, and squeezing at concerts, and chattering at 
conversaziones, and gorging at great dinners — when she is 
calm, contemplative, confidential, and at leisure. 

Colonel Padmore of our Club being out of town, and too 
wise a man to send his favorite old cob to grass, I mounted 
him yesterday, and took a ride in Rotten Row, and in various 
parts of the City, where but ten days back all sorts of life, 
hilarity, and hospitality, were going on. What a change it is 
now in the Park, from that scene which the modern Pepys, and 
that ingenious youth who signs his immortal drawings with a 
D surmounted by a dickey-bird, depicted only a few weeks ago ! 
Where are the thousands of carriages that crawled along the 
Serpentine shore, and which give an observant man a happy 
and wholesome sense of his own insignificance — for you shall 
be a man long upon the town, and pass five hundred equipages 
without knowing the owners of one of them ? Where are the 
myriads of horsemen who trampled the Row? — the splendid 
dandies whose boots were shiny, whose chins were tufted, 
whose shirts were astounding, whose manners were frank and 
manly, whose brains were somewhat small ? Where are the 
stout old capitalists and bishops on their cobs (the Bench, by 
the way, cuts an uncommonly good figure on horseback) ? 
Where are the dear rideresses, above all ? Where is she the 
gleaming of whose red neck-ribbon in the distance made your 
venerable uncle’s heart beat, Bob ? He sees her now prancing 
by, severe and beautiful — a young Diana, with pure bright eyes ! 
Where is Fanny, who wore the pretty gray hat and feather, and 
rode the pretty gray mare ? Fanny changed her name last 
week, without ever so much as sending me a piece of cake. 
The gay squadrons have disappeared : the ground no longer 
thrills with the thump of their countless hoofs. Watteau-like 
groups in shot silks no longer compose themselves uncfer the 
green boughs of Kensington Gardens : the scarlet trumpeters 
have blown themselves away thence j you don’t behold a score 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 463 

of horsemen in the course of an hour’s ride ; and Mrs. Catherine 
Highflyer, whom a fortnight since you never saw unaccompanied 
by some superb young Earl and roue of the fashion, had yester- 
day so little to do with her beautiful eyes, that she absolutely 
tried to kill your humble servant with them as she cantered by 
me in at the barriers of the row, and looked round firing 
Parthian shots behind her. But Padmofe’s cob did not trot, 
nor did my blood run any the quicker, Mr. Bob ; man and 
beast are grown too old and steady to be put out of our pace 
by any Mrs. Highflyer of them all ; and though I hope, if I live 
to be a hundred, never to be unmoved by the sight of a pretty 
girl, it is not thy kind of beauty, O ogling and vain Delilah, 
that can set me cantering after thee. 

By the way, one of the benefits I find in the dull season is 
at my own lodgings. When I ring the bell now, that uncom- 
monly pretty young woman, the landlady’s daughter, con- 
descends to come in and superintend my comfort, and whisk 
about amongst the books and tea-things, and wait upon me in 
general : whereas in the full season, when young Lord Claude 
Lollypop is here attending to his arduous duties in Parliament, 
and occupying his accustomed lodgings on the second floor, 
the deuce a bit will Miss Flora ever deign to bring a message 
or a letter to old Mr. Brown on the first, but sends me in 
Muggins, my old servant, whose ugly face I have known any 
time these thirty years, or the blowsy maid-of-all-work with her 
sandy hair in papers. 

Again, at the Club, how many privileges does a man lingering 
in London enjoy, from which he is precluded in the full season ? 
Every man in every Club has three or four special aversions — 
men who somehow annoy him, as I have no doubt but that you 
and I, Bob, are hated by some particular man, and for that 
excellent reason for which the poet disliked Dr. Fell — the 
appearance of old Banquo, in the same place, in the same arm- 
chair, reading the newspaper day after day and evening after 
evening; of Mr. Plodder threading among the coffee-room 
tables and taking note of every man’s dinner; of old general 
Hawkshaw, who makes that constant noise in the Club, sneezing, 
coughing, and blowing his nose — all these men, by their various 
defects or qualities, have driven me half mad at times, and I 
have thought to myself, Oh, that I could go to the Club without 
seeing Banquo — Oh, that Plodder would not come and inspect 
my mutton-chop — Oh, that fate would remove Hawkshaw and 
his pocket-handkerchief forever out of my sight and hearing ! 
Well, August arrives, and one’s three men of the sea are off 


464 SKETCHES AMD TRAVELS IN LONDON. 

one’s shoulders. Mr. and Mrs. Banquo are at Leamington, the 
paper says ; Mr. Plodder is gone to Paris to inspect the dinners 
at the “Trois Freres and Hawkshaw is coughing away at 
Brighton, where the sad sea waves murmur before him. The 
Club is your own. How pleasant it is ! You can get the Globe 
and Standard now without a struggle ; you may see all the 
Sunday papers ; when you dine it is not like dining in a street 
dinned by the tramp of waiters perpetually passing with clanking 
dishes of various odors, and jostled by young men who look 
scowlingly down upon your dinner as they pass with creaking 
boots. They are all gone — you sit in a vast and agreeable 
apartment with twenty large servants at your orders — if you 
were a Duke with a thousand pounds a day you couldn’t be 
better served or lodged. Those men, having nothing else to 
do, are anxious to prevent your desires and make you happy — 
the butler bustles about with your pint of wine — if you order a 
dish, the chef himself will probably cook it; what mortal can 
ask more. 

I once read in a book purporting to give descriptions of 
London, and life and manners, an account of a family in the 
lower ranks of genteel life, who shut up the front windows of 
their house, and lived in the back rooms, from which they only 
issued for fresh air surreptitiously at midnight, so that their 
friends might suppose that they were out of town. I suppose 
that there is some foundation for this legend. I suppose that 
some people are actually afraid to be seen in London, when the 
persons who form their society have quitted the metropolis : 
and that Mr. and Mrs. Higgs, being left at home at Islington, 
when Mr. and Mrs. Biggs, their next-door neighbors, have 
departed for Margate or Gravesend, feel pangs of shame at 
their own poverty, and envy at their friends’ better fortune. I 
have seen many men and cities, my dear Bob, and noted their 
manners ; and for servility I will back a free-born Englishman 
of the respectable classes against any man of any nation in 
the world. In the competition for social rank between Higgs 
and Biggs, think what a strange standard of superiority is set 
up ! — a shilling steamer to Gravesend, and a few shrimps more 
or less on one part or the other, settle the claim. Perhaps in 
what is called high life, there are disputes as paltry, aims as 
mean, and distinctions as absurd : but my business is with 
this present folly of being ashamed to be in London. Ashamed, 
sir ! I like being in London at this time, and have so much to 
say regarding the pleasures of the place in the dead season, 
that I hope to write you another letter regarding it next week. 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


465 


II. 

Careering during the season from one party to another, 
from one great dinner of twenty covers to another of eighteen 
guests ; from Lady Hustlebury’s rout to Mrs. Packington’s 
soirde — friendship, to a man about town, becomes impossible 
from February to August : it is only his acquaintances he can 
cultivate during those six months of turmoil. 

In the last fortnight, one has had leisure to recur to more 
tender emotions : in other words, as nobody has asked me to 
dinner, I have been about seeking dinners from my old friends. 
And very glad are they to see you : very kindly and hospitable 
are they disposed to be, very pleasant are those little calm 
reunions in the quiet summer-evenings, when the beloved friend 
of your youth and you sip a bottle of claret together leisurely 
without candles, and ascend to the drawing-room where the 
friend of your youth’s wife sits blandly presiding over the tea- 
pot. What matters that it is the metal teapot, the silver uten- 
sils being packed off to the banker’s ? What matters that the 
hangings are down, and the lustre in a brown-holi ands bag ? 
Intimacy increases by this artless confidence — you are admitted 
to a family e?i deshabille . In an honest man’s house, the wine 
is never sent to the banker’s ; he can always go to the cellar 
for that. And so we drink and prattle in quiet — about the 
past season, about our sons at college, and what not ? We 
become intimate again, because Fate, which has long separated 
us, throws us once more together. I say the dull season is a 
kind season : gentle and amiable, friendly and full of quiet en- 
joyment. 

Among these pleasant little meetings, for which the present 
season has given time and opportunity, I shall mention one, 
sir, which took place last Wednesday, and which during the 
very dinner itself I vowed I would describe, if the venerable 
Mr . Punch would grant me leave and space, in the columns of 
a journal which has for its object the promotion of mirth and 
gpod-will. 

In the year eighteen hundred and something, sir, there 
lived at a villa, at a short distance from London, a certain gentle- 
man and lady who had many acquaintances and friends, among 
whom was your humble servant. For to become acquainted 
with this young woman was to be her friend, so friendly was she, 
so kind, so gentle, so full of natural genius, and graceful feminine 
accomplishment. Whatever she did, she did charmingly ; her 

o 


466 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

life was decorated with a hundred pretty gifts, with which, as 
one would fancy, kind fairies had endowed her cradle ; music and 
pictures seemed to flow naturally out of her hand, as she laid 
it- on the piano or the drawing-board. She sang exquisitely, 
'and with a full heart, and as if she couldn’t help it any more 
than a bird. I have an image of this fair creature before me 
now, a calm, sunshiny evening, a green lawn flaring with roses 
and geraniums, and a half-dozen gentlemen sauntering thereon 
in a state of great contentment, or gathered under the veranda, 
by the open French window : near by she sits singing at the 
piano. She is ii) a pink dress : she has gigot sleeves ; a little 
child in a prodigious sash is playing about at her mother’s knee. 
She sings song after song ; the sun goes down behind the 
black fir-trees that belt the lawn, and Missy in the blue sash 
vanishes to the nursery ; the room darkens in the twilight ; the 
stars appear in the heaven — and the tips of the cigars glow in 
the balcony ; she sings song after song, in accents soft and low, 
tender and melodious — we are never tired of hearing her. In- 
deed, Bob, I can hear her still — the stars of those calm nights still 
shine in my memory, and I have been humming one of her 
tunes with my pen in my mouth, to the surprise of Mr. Dodder, 
who is writing at the opposite side of the table, and wondering 
at the lackadaisical expression which pervades my venerable 
mug. 

You will naturally argue from the above pathetic passage, 
that I was greatly smitten by Mrs. Nightingale (as we will call 
this lady, if you will permit me). You are right, sir. For 
what is an amiable woman made, but that we should fall in 
love with her ? I do not mean to say that you are to lose your 
sleep, or give up your dinner, or make yourself unhappy in her 
absence ; but when the sun shines (and it is not too hot) I like 
to bask in it : when the bird sings, to listen : and to admire 
that which is admirable with an honest and hearty enjoyment. 
There were a half-dozen men at the period of which I speak 
who wore Mrs. Nightingale’s colors, and we used to be invited 
down from London of a Saturday and Sunday, to Thornwood, 
by the hospitable host and hostess there, and it seemed like 
going back to school, when we came away by the coach of a 
Monday morning : we talked of her all the way back to Lon- 
don, to separate upon our various callings when we got into the 
smoky City. Salvator Rodgers, the painter, went to his easel ; 
Woodward, the barrister, to his chambers ; Piper, the doctor, 
to his patient (for he then had only one), and so forth. Fate 
called us each to his business, and has sent us upon many a 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 467 

distant errand since that day. But from that day to this, 
whenever we meet, the remembrance of the holidays at Thorm 
wood has been always a bond of union between us : and we 
have always had Mrs. Nightingale’s colors put away amongst 
the cherished relics of old times. 

N. was a West India merchant, and his property went to the 
bad. He died at Jamaica. Thorn wood was let to other peo- 
ple, who knew us not. The widow with a small jointure, re- 
tired, and educated her daughter abroad. We had not heard 
of her for years and years, nor until she came to town about a 
legacy a few weeks since. 

In those years and years what changes have taken place ! 
Sir Salvator Rodgers is a Member of the Royal Academy ; 
Woodward, the barrister, has made a fortune at the Bar ; and 
in seeing Doctor Piper in his barouche, as he rolls about Bel- 
gravia and May Fair, you at once know what a man of import- 
ance he has become. 

On last Monday week, sir, I received a letter in a delicate 
female handwriting, with which I was not acquainted, and which 
Miss Flora, the landlady’s daughter, condescended to bring me, 
saying that it had been left at the door by two ladies in a 
brougham. 

“ — Why did you not let them come up stairs ? ” said I in a 
rage, after reading the note. 

“ We don’t know what sort of people goes about in 
broughams,” said Miss Flora, with a toss of her head ; “ we 
don’t want no ladies in our house.” And she flung her im- 
pertinence out of the room. 

The note was signed Frances Nightingale, — whereas our 
Nightingale’s name was Louisa. But this Frances was no other 
than the little thing in the large blue sash, whom we remem- 
bered at Thornwood ever so many years ago. The writer de- 
clared that she recollected me quite well, that her mamma was 
most anxious to see an old friend, and that they had apartments 
at No. 166 Clarges Street, Piccadilly, whither I hastened off to 
pay my respects to Mrs. Nightingale. 

When I entered the room, a tall and beautiful young woman 
with blue eyes, and serene and majestic air, came up to shake 
hands with me : and I beheld in her, without in the least rec- 
ognizing, the little Fanny of the blue sash. Mamma came 
out of the adjoining apartment presently. We had not met 
since — since all sorts of events had occurred — her voice was 
not a little agitated. Here was that fair creature whom we had 
admired so. Sir, I shall not say whether she was altered of 


4 68 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

not. The tones of her voice were as sweet and kind as ever : 
—and we talked about Miss Fanny as a subject in common be- 
tween us, and I admired the growth and beauty of the young 
lady, though I did not mind telling her to her face (at which to 
be sure the girl was delighted), that she never in my eyes would 
be half so pretty as her mother. 

Well, sir, upon this day arrangements were made for the 
dinner which took place on Wednesday last, and to the remem- 
brance of which I determined to consecrate this present page. 

It so happened that everybody was in town of the old set 
of whom I have made mention, and everybody was disengaged. 
Sir Salvator Rodgers (who has become such a swell since he 
was knighted and got the cordon of the order of the George 
and Blue Boar of Russia, that we like to laugh at him a little,) 
made his appearance at eight o’clock, and was perfectly natural 
and affable. Woodward, the lawyer, forgot his abominable law 
and his money about which he is always thinking : and finally, 
Dr. Piper, of whom we despaired because his wife is mortally 
jealous of every lady whom he attends, and will hardly let him 
dine out of her sight, had pleaded Lady Rackstraw’s situation 
as a reason for not going down to Wimbledon Common till 
night — and so we six had a meeting. 

The door was opened to us by a maid, who looked us hard 
in the face as we went up stairs, and who was no other than 
little Fanny’s nurse in former days, come like us to visit her 
old mistress. We all knew her except Woodward, the lawyer, 
and all shook hands with her except him. Constant study had 
driven her out of the lawyer’s memory. I don’t think he ever 
cared for Mrs. Nightingale as much as the rest of us did, or in- 
deed that it is in the nature of that learned man to care for 
any but one learned person. 

And what do you think, sir, this dear and faithful widow 
had done to make us welcome l She remembered the dishes that 
we used to like ever so long ago, and she had every man’s favor- 
ite dish for him. Rodgers used to have a passion for herrings 
—there they were ; the lawyer, who has an enormous appetite, 
which he gratifies at other people’s expense, had a shoulder of 
mutton and onion sauce, which the lean and hungry man de- 
voured almost entirely : mine did not come till the second 
course — it was baked plum-pudding — I was affected when I 
saw it, sir — I choked almost when I ate it. Piper made a 
beautiful little speech, and made an ice compound, for which 
he was famous, and we drank it just as we used to drink it in 
old times, and to the health of the widow. 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


469 

How should we have had this dinner, how could we all 
have assembled together again, if everybody had not been out 
of town, and everybody had not been disengaged ? Just for 
one evening, the scattered members of an old circle of friend- 
ship returned and met round the old table again — round this 
little green island we moor for the night at least, — to-morrow 
we part company, and each man for himself sails over the 
ingens cequor . 

Since I wrote the above, I find that everybody really is 
gone away. The widow left town on Friday. I have been on 
my round just now, and have been met at every step by closed 
shutters and the faces of unfamiliar charwomen. No. 9 is 
gone to Malvern. No. 37, 15, 25, 48, and 36A, are gone to 
Scotland. The solitude of the Club begins to be unbearable, 
and I found Muggins this morning preparing a mysterious ap- 
paratus of travelling boot-trees, and dusting the portmanteaus. 

If you are not getting on well with the Kickleburys at 
Homburg I recommend you to go to Spa. Mrs. Nightingale 
is going thither, and will be at the Hotel d’Orange ; where you 
may use my name and present yourself to her ; and I may hint 
to you in confidence that Miss Fanny will have a very pretty 
little fortune. 


ON A LAD Y IN AN OPERA-BOX. 

Going the other night to the Conservatoire at Paris, where 
there was a magnificent assemblage of rank and fashion 
gathered together to hear the delightful performance of 
Madame Sontag, the friend who conferred upon me the polite 
favor of a ticket to the stalls, also pointed out to me who were 
the most remarkable personages round about us. There were 
ambassadors, politicians, and gentlemen, military and literary ; 
there were beauties, French, Russian and English : there were 
old ladies who had been beauties once, and who, by the help 
of a little distance and politeness (and if you didn’t use your 
opera-glass, which is a cruel detector of paint and wrinkles), 
looked young and handsome still : and plenty of old bucks in 
the stalls and boxes, well wigged, well gloved, and brilliantly 
waistcoated, very obsequious to the ladies, and satisfied with 
themselves and the world. 


47 ° 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


Up in the second tier of boxes I saw a very stout, jolly, 
good-humored-looking lady, whose head-dress and ringlets and 
general appurtenances were unmistakably English — and whom, 
were you to meet her at Timbuctoo, or in the Seraglio of the 
Grand Sultan amongst a bevy of beauties collected from all 
the countries of the earth, one would instantly know to be a 
British female. I do not mean to say that ? were I the Padi- 
shah, I would select that moon-faced houri out of all the lovely 
society, and make her the Empress or Grand Signora of my 
dominions; but simply that there is a character about our 
countrywomen which leads one to know, recognize, and admire, 
and wonder at them among all women of all tongues and coun- 
tries. We have our British Lion ; we have our Britannia ruling 
the waves : we have our British female — the most respectable, 
the most remarkable, of the women of this world. And now 
we have come to the woman who gives the subject, though she 
is not herself the subject, of these present remarks. 

As I looked at her with that fond curiosity and silent 
pleasure and wonder which she (I mean the Great-British 
Female) always inspires in my mind, watching her smiles, her 
ways and motions, her allurements and attractive gestures — 
her head bobbing to this friend whom she recognized in the 
stalls — her jolly fat hand wagging a welcome to that acquaint- 
ance in a neighboring box — my friend and guide for the even- 
ing caught her eye, and made her a respectful bow, and said 
to me with a look cf much meaning, “That is Mrs. Trotter- 
Walker.” And from that minute I forgot Madame Sontag, 
and thought only of Mrs. T.-W. 

“So that,” said I, “is Mrs. Trotter-Walker! You have 
touched a chord in my heart. You have brought back old times 
to my memory, and made me recall some of the griefs and dis- 
appointments of my early days.” 

“ Hold your tongue, man ! ” says Tom, my friend. “ Listen 
to the Sontag ; how divinely she is singing ! how fresh her 
voice is still ! ” 

I looked up at Mrs. Walker all the time with unabated in- 
terest. “ Madam,” thought I, “ you look to be as kind and 
good-natured a person as eyes ever lighted upon. The way in 
which you are smiling to that young dandy with the double 
eyeglass, and the empressenient with which he returns the salute, 
show that your friends are persons of rank and elegance, and 
that you are esteemed by them — giving them, as I am sure 
from your kind appearance you do, good dinners and pleasant 
balls. But I wonder what would you think if you knew that X 


SKETCHES AND ERA VELS IN LONDON 


471 

was looking at you ? I behold you for the first time : there 
are a hundred pretty young girls in the house, whom an amateur 
ot mere beauty would examine with much greater satisfaction 
than he would naturally bestow upon a lady whose prime is 
past; and yet the sight of you interests me, and tickles me, so 
to speak, and my eyeglass can’t remove itself from the con- 
templation of your honest face.” 

What is it that interests me so ? What do you suppose in- 
terests a man the most in this life ? Himself, to be sure. It is 
at himself he is looking through his opera-glass — himself who 
is concerned, or he would not be watching you so keenly. And 
now let me confess why it is that the lady in the upper box 
excites me so, and why I say, “ That is Mrs. Trotter-Walker, is 
it ? ” with an air of such deep interest. 

Well then. In the year eighteen hundred and thirty odd, 
it happened that I went to pass the winter at Rome, as we will 
call the city. Major-General and Mrs. Trotter-Walker were 
also there ; and until I heard of them there, I had never heard 
that there were such people in existence as the General and 
the lady — the lady yonder with the large fan in the upper 
boxes. Mrs. Walker, as became her station in life, took, I 
dare say, very comfortable lodgings, gave dinners and parties 
to her friends, and had a night in the week for receptions. 

Much as I have travelled and lived abroad, these evening 
reunions have never greatly fascinated me. Man cannot live 
upon lemonade, wax-candles, and weak tea. Gloves and white 
neck-cloths cost money, and those plaguy shiny boots are 
always so tight and hot. Am I made of money, that I can hire 
a coach to go to one of these soirees on a rainy Roman night ; 
or can I come in goloshes, and take them off in the ante-cham- 
ber? I am too poor for cabs, and too vain for goloshes. If it 
had been to see the girl of my heart, (I mean at the time when 
there were girls, and I had a heart,) I couldn’t have gone in 
goloshes. Well, not being in love, and not liking weak tea and 
lemonade, I did not go to evening-parties that year at Rome : 
nor, of later years, at Paris, Vienna, Copenhagen, Islington, or 
wherever I may have been. 

What, then, were my feelings when my dear and valued 
friend, Mrs. Coverdale, (she is a daughter of that venerable 
Peer, the Right Honorable the Lord Commandine,) who was 
passing the winter too at Rome, said to me, “ My dear Dr. 
Pacifico, what have you done to offend Mrs. Trotter-Walker? ” 

“ I know no person of that name,” I said. “ I knew Walker 
of the Post Office, and poor Trotter who was a captain in our 


47 2 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


regiment, and died under my hands at the Bahamas. But with 
the Trotter-Walkers I haven’t the honor of an acquaintance.” 

“ Well, it is not likely that you will have that honor,” Mrs. 
Coverlade said. “ Mrs. Walker said last night that she did 
not wish to make your acquaintance, and that she did not 
intend to receive you.” 

“ I think she might have waited until I asked her, Madam,” 
I said. “ What have I done to her ? I have never seen or 
heard of her : how should I want to get into her house ? ol 
attend at her^Tuesdays — confound her Tuesdays!” I am 
sorry to say I said, “ Confound Mrs. Walker’s Tuesdays,” and 
the conversation took another turn, and it so happened that I 
was called away from Rome suddenly, and never set eyes upon 
Mrs. Walker, or indeed thought about her from that day to 
this. 

Strange endurance of human vanity ! a million of much 
more important conversations have escaped one since then, 
most likely — but the memory of this little mortification (for such 
it is, after all) remains quite fresh in the mind, and unforgotten, 
though it is a trifle, and more than half a score of years old. 
We forgive injuries, we survive even our remorse for great 
wrongs that we ourselves commit ; but I doubt if we ever for- 
give slights of this nature put upon us, or forget circumstances 
in which our self-love had been made to suffer. 

Otherwise, why should the remembrance of Mrs. Trotter- 
Walker have remained so lively in this bosom? Why should 
her appearance have excited such a keen interest in these eyes ? 
Had Venus or Helen (the favorite beauty of Paris) been at the 
side of Mrs. T.-W., I should have looked at the latter more 
than at thq Queen of Love herself. Had Mrs. Walker mur- 
dered Mrs. Pacifico, or inflicted some mortal injury upon me, 
I might forgive her — but for slight? Never, Mrs. Trotter- 
Walker ; never, by Nemesis, never ! 

And now, having allowed my personal wrath to explode, let 
us calmly moralize for a minute or two upon this little circum- 
stance ; for there is no circumstance, however little, that won’t 
afford a text for a sermon. Why was it that Mrs. General 
Trotter-Walker refused to receive Dr. S. Pacifico at her parties? 
She had noticed me probably somewhere where I had not re- 
marked her; she did not like my aquiline countenance, my 
manner of taking snuff, my Blucher boots, or what not ? or she 
had seen me walking with my friend Jack Raggett, the painter, 
on the Pincio — a fellow with a hat and beard like a bandit, a 
shabby paletot, and a great pipe between his teeth. I was not 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


473 


genteel enough for her circle — I assume that to be the reason ; 
indeed, Mrs. Coverlade, with a good-natured smile at my coat 
which I own was somewhat shabby, gave me to understand as 
much. 

You little know, my worthy kind lady, what a loss you had 
that season at Rome, in turning up your amiable nose at the 
present writer. I could have given you appropriate anecdotes 
(with which my mind is stored) of all the courts of Europe (be- 
sides Africa, Asia, and St. Domingo,) which I have visited. I 
could have made the General die of laughing after dinner with 
some of my funny stories, of which I keep a book, without 
which I never travel. I am content with my dinner: I can 
carve beautifully, and make jokes upon almost any dish at 
table. I can talk about wine, cookery, hotels all over the Con- 
tinent : — anything you will. I have been familiar with Cardi- 
nals, Red Republicans, Jesuits, German Princes, and Carbonari ; 
and what is more, I can listen and hold my tongue to admira- 
tion. Ay, Madam ! what did you lose in refusing to make the 
acquaintance of Solomon Pacifico, M. D. ! 

And why ? Because my coat was a trifle threadbare ; be- 
cause I dined at the “ Lepre ” with Raggett and some of those 
other bandits of painters, and had not the money to hire a 
coach and horses. 

Gentility is the death and destruction of social happiness 
amongst the middle classes in England. It destroys natural- 
ness (if I may coin such a word) and kindly sympathies. The 
object of life, as I take it, is to be friendly with everybody. As 
a rule, and to a philosophical cosmopolite, every man ought to 
be welcome. I do not mean to your intimacy or affection, but to 
your society ; as there is, if we would or could but "discover it, 
something notable, something worthy of observation, of sym- 
pathy, of wonder and amusement in every fellow-mortal. If 1 
had been Mr. Pacifico, travelling with a courier and a carriage, 
would Mrs. Walker have made any objection to me ? I think 
not. It was the Blucher-boots and the worn hat and the homely 
companion of the individual which were unwelcome to this lady. 
If I had been the disguised Duke of Pacifico, and not a re- 
tired army-surgeon, would she have forgiven herself for slight- 
ing me ? What stores of novels, what foison of plays, are com- 
posed upon this theme, — the queer old character in the wig and 
cloak throws off coat and spectacles, and appears suddenly with 
a star and crown, — a Haroun Alraschid, or other Merry Mon- 
arch. And straightway we clap our hands and applaud — what ? 
—-the star and garter. 


474 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


But disguised emperors are not common nowadays. You 
don’t turn away monarchs from your door, any more than angels, 
unawares. Consider, though, how many a good fellow you may 
shut out and sneer upon ! what an immense deal of pleasure, 
frankness, kindness, good-fellowship, we forego for the sake of 
our confounded gentility, and respect for outward show ! In- 
stead of placing our society upon an honest footing, we make 
our aim almost avowedly sordid. Love is of necessity banished 
from your society when you measure all your guests by a money- 
standard. 

I think of all this — a harmless man — seeing a good-natured- 
looking, jolly woman in the boxes yonder, who thought herself 
once too great a person to associate with the likes of me. If I 
give myself airs to my neighbor, may I think of this too, and be 
a little more humble ! And you, honest friend, who read this — 
have you ever pooh-poohed a man as good as you ? If you fall 
into the society of people whom you are pleased to call your 
inferiors, did you ever sneer? If so, change I into U, and 
the fable is narrated for your own benefit, by your obedient 
servant, 

Solomon Pacifico. 


ON THE PLEASURES OF BEING A EOG1. 

Whilst I was riding the other day by the beautiful Serpen- 
tine River upon my excellent friend Heaviside’s gray cob, and 
in company of the gallant and agreeable Augustus Toplady, a 
carriage passed, from which looked out a face of such remark- 
able beauty, that Augustus and myself quickened our pace to 
follow the vehicle, and to keep for awhile those charming fea- 
tures in view. My beloved and unknown young friend who 
peruse these lines, it was very likely your face which attracted 
your humble servant ; recollect whether you were not in the 
Park upon the day I allude to, and if you were, whom else could 
I mean but you ? I don’t know your name ; I have forgotten 
the arms on the carriage, or whether there were any ; and as 
for women’s dresses, who can remember them ? but your dear 
kind countenance was so pretty and good-humored and pleasant 
to look at, that it remains to this day faithfully engraven on my 
heart, and I feel sure that you are as good as you are hand 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


475 


some. Almost all handsome women are good : they cannot 
choose but be good and gentle with those sweet features and 
that charming graceful figure. A day in which one sees a very 
pretty woman should always be noted as a holyday with a man, 
and marked with a white stone. In this way, and at this season 
in London, to be sure, such a day comes seven times in the 
week, and our calendar, like that of the Roman Catholics, is all 
Saints’ days. 

Toplady, then, on his chestnut horse, with his glass in his 
eye, and the tips of his shiny boots just touching the stirrup, 
and your slave, the present writer, rode after your carriage, and 
looked at you with such notes of admiration expressed in their 
eyes, that you remember you blushed, you smiled, and then 
began to talk to that very nice-looking elderly lady in the front 
seat, who of course was your Mamma. You turned out of the 
ride — it was time to go home and dress for dinner, — you were 
gone. Good luck go with you, and with all fair things which 
thus come and pass away ! 

Top caused his horse to cut all sorts of absurd capers and 
caracoles by the side of your carriage. He made it dance upon 
two legs, then upon other two, then as if he would jump over 
the railings and crush the admiring nursery-maids and the rest 
of the infantry. I should think he got his animal from Batty’s, 
and that, at a crack of Widdicomb’s whip, he could dance a 
quadrille. He ogled, he smiled, he took off his hat to a 
Countess’s carriage that happened to be passing in the other 
line, and so showed his hair ; he grinned, he kissed his little 
finger-tips and flung them about as if he would shake them off 
— whereas the other party on the gray cob — the old gentleman — 
powdered along at a resolute trot, and never once took his 
respectful eyes off you while you continued in the ring. 

When you were gone (you see by the way in which I linger 
about you still, that I am unwilling to part with you) Toplady 
turned round upon me with a killing triumphant air, and stroked 
that impudent little tuft he has on his chin, and said — “ I say, 
old boy, it was the chestnut she was looking at, and not the 
gway .” And I make no doubt he thinks you are in love with 
him to this minute. 

“You silly young jackanapes,” said I, “what do I care 
whether she was looking at the gray or the chestnut ? I was 
thinking about the girl ; you were thinking about yourself, and 
be hanged to your vanity ! ” And with this thrust in his little 
chest, I flatter myself I upset young Toplady, that triumphant 
careering rider. 


47 6 SKETCHES AND 7'RA VELS IN LONDON 

It was natural that he should wish to please • that is, that he 
should wish other people to admire him. Augustus Toplady i$ 
young (still) and lovely. It is not until a late period of life that 
a genteel young fellow, with a Grecian nose and a suitable waist 
and whiskers, begins to admire other people besides himself. 

That, however, is the great advantage which a man possesses 
whose morning of life is over, whose reason is not taken prisoner 
by any kind of blandishments, and who knows and feels that he 
is a FOGY. As an old buck is an odious sight, absurd, and 
ridiculous before gods and men ; cruelly, but deservedly, quizzed 
by you young people, who are not in the least duped by his 
youthful airs or toilette artifices, so an honest, good-natured, 
straightforward, middle-aged, easily-pleased Fogy is a worthy 
and amiable member of society, and a man who gets both 
respect and liking. 

Even in the lovely sex, who has not remarked how painful 
is that period of a woman’s life when she is passing out of her 
bloom, and thinking about giving up her position as a beauty ? 
What sad injustice and stratagems she has to perpetrate during 
the struggle ! She hides away her daughters in the school- 
room, she makes them wear cruel pinafores, and dresses herself 
in the garb which they ought to assume. She is obliged to dis- 
tort the calendar, and to resort to all sorts of schemes and arts 
to hide, in her own person, the august and respectable marks 
of time. Ah ! what is this revolt against nature but impotent 
blasphemy? Is not Autumn beautiful in its appointed season, 
that we are to be ashamed of her and paint her yellowing leaves 
pea-green ? Let us, I say, take the fall of the year as it was 
made, serenely and sweetly, and await the time when Winter 
comes and the nights shut in. I know, for my part, many ladies 
who are far more agreeable and more beautiful too, now that 
they are no longer beauties ; and, by converse, I have no doubt 
that Toplady, about whom we were speaking just now, will be 
a far pleasanter person when he has given up the practice, or 
desire, of killing the other sex, and has sunk into a mellow 
repose as an old bachelor or a married man. 

The great and delightful * advantage that a man enjoys in 
the world, after he has abdicated all pretensions as a conqueror 
and enslaver of females, and both formally, and of his heart, 
acknowledges himself to be a Fogy, is that he now comes for 
the first time to enjoy and appreciate duly the society of women. 
For a young man about town, there is only one woman in the 
whole City — (at least very few indeed of the young Turks, let 
U§ hope, dare to have two or three strings to their wicked bows) 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


477 


— he goes to ball after ball in pursuit of that one person ; he 
sees no other eyes but hers ; hears no other voice ; cares for no 
other petticoat but that in which his charmer dances : he pur- 
sues her — is refused — is accepted and jilted ; breaks his heart, 
mends it of course, and goes on again after some other beloved 
Being, until in the order of fate and nature he marries and 
settles, or remains unmarried, free, and a Fogy. Until then we 
iknow nothing of women — the kindness and refinement and wit 
of the elders ; the artless prattle and dear little chatter of the 
young ones ; all these are hidden from us until we take the 
Fogy’s degree : nay, even perhaps from married men, whose age 
and gravity entitle them to rank amongst Fogies; for every 
woman, who is worth anything, will be jealous of her husband 
up to seventy or eighty, and always prevent his intercourse with 
other ladies. But an old bachelor, or better still, an old 
widower, has this delightful eiitree into the female world : he is 
free to come; to go; to listen; to joke; to sympathize; to 
talk with mamma about her plans and troubles ; to pump from 
Miss the little secrets that gush so easily from her pure little 
well of a heart ; the ladies do not gener themselves before him, 
and he is admitted to their mysteries like the Doctor, the Con- 
fessor, or the Kislar Aga. 

What man, who can enjoy this pleasure and privilege, ought 
to be indifferent to it ? If the society of one woman is delight- 
ful, as the young fellows think, and justly, how much more 
delightful is the society of a thousand ! One woman, for in- 
stance, has brown eyes, and a geological or musical turn ; 
another has sweet blue eyes, and takes, let us say, the Gorham 
side of the controversy at present pending ; a third darling, 
with long fringed lashes hiding eyes of hazel, lifts them up 
-ceilingwards in behalf of Miss Sellon, thinks the Lord Chief 
Justice has hit the poor young lady very hard in publishing her 
letters, and proposes to quit the Church next Tuesday or Wed- 
nesday, or whenever Mr. Oriel is ready — and, of course, a man 
may be in love with one or the other of these. But it is mani- 
fest that brown eyes will remain brown eyes to the end, and 
that, having no other interest but music or geology, her con- 
versation on those points may grow more than sufficient. Sap- 
phira, again, when she has said her say with regard to the 
Gorham affair, and proved that the other p'arty are but Roman- 
ists in disguise, and who is interested on no other subject, may 
possibly tire you — so may Hazelia, who is working altar-cloths 
all day, and would desire no better martyrdom than to walk 
barefoot in a night procession up Sloane Street and home by 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


478 

Wilton Place, time enough to get her poor meurtris little feet' 
in white satin slippers for the night’s ball — I say, if a man can 
be wrought up to rapture, and enjoy bliss in the company of 
any one of these young ladies, or any other individuals in the 
infinite variety of Miss-kind — how much real sympathy, benevo- 
lent pleasure, and kindly observation may he enjoy, when he is 
allowed to be familiar with the whole charming race, and behold 
the brightness of all their different eyes, and listen to the sweet 
music of their various voices ! 

In possession of the right and privilege of garrulity which 
is accorded to old age, I cannot allow that a single side of 
paper should contain all that I have to say in respect to the 
manifold advantages of being a Fogy. I am a Fogy, and 
have been a young man. I see twenty women in the world con- 
stantly to whom I would like to have given a lock of my hair 
in days when my pate boasted of that ornament ; for whom my 
heart felt tumultuous emotions, before the victorious and be- 
loved Mrs. Pacifico subjugated it. If I had any feelings now, 
Mrs. P. would order me and them to be quiet : but I have 
none ; I am tranquil — yes, really tranquil (though as my dear 
Leonora is sitting opposite to me at this minute, and has an 
askance glance from her novel to my paper as I write — even if 
I were not tranquil, I should say that I was ; but I am quiet) : 
I have passed the hot stage : and I do not know a pleasanter 
and calmer feeling of mind than that of a respectable person 
of the middle age, who can still be heartily and generously fond 
of all the women about whom he was in a passion and a fever 
in early life. If you cease liking a woman when you cease lov- 
ing her, depend on it, that one of you is a bad one. You are 
parted, never mind with what pangs on either side, or by what 
circumstances of fate, choice, or necessity, — you have no money 
or she has too much, or she likes somebody else better, and so 
forth ; but an honest Fogy should always, unless reason be 
given to the contrary, think well of the woman whom he has 
once thought well of, and remember her with kindness and 
tenderness, as a man remembers a place where he has been 
very happy. 

A proper management of his recollections thus constitutes 
a very great item in tfie happiness of a Fogy. I, for my part, 

would rather remember , and , and (I dare not 

mention names, for isn’t my Leonora pretending to read “ The 
Initials,” and peeping over my shoulder ?) than be in love over 
again. It is because I have suffered prodigiously from that pas- 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


479 


Sion that I am interested in beholding others undergoing the 
malady. I watch it in all ball-rooms (over my cards, where I 
and the old ones sit,) and dinner-parties. Without sentiment, 
there would be no flavor in life at all. I like to watch young 
folks who are fond of each other, be it the housemaid furtively 
engaged smiling and glancing with John through the area rail- 
ings ; be it Miss and the Captain whispering in the embrazure 
of the drawing-room window- — Ama?it is interesting to me 
because of Amavi — of course it is Mrs. Pacifico I mean. 

All Fogies of good breeding and kind condition of mind, who 
go about in the world much, should remember to efface them- 
selves— if I may use a French phrase — they -should not, that is 
to say, thrust in their old mugs on all occasions. When the 
people are marching out to dinner, for instance, and the 
Captain is sidling up to Miss, Fogy, because he is twenty years 
older than the Captain, should not push himself forward to ar- 
rest that young fellow, and carry off the disappointed girl on 
his superannuated rheumatic old elbow. When there is any- 
thing of this sort going on (and a man of the world has posses- 
sion of the carte du pays with half an eye), I become interested 
in a picture, or have something particular to say to pretty Polly 
the parrot, or to little Tommy, who is not coming in to dinner, 
and while I am talking to him, Miss and the Captain make 
their little arrangement. In this way I managed only last week 
to let young Billington and the lovely Blanche Pouter get to- 
gether ; and walked down stairs with my hat for the only part- 
ner of my arm. Augustus Toplady now, because he was a 
Captain of Dragoons almost before Billington was born, would 
have insisted upon his right of precedence over Billington, who 
only got his troop the other day. 

Precedence ! Fiddlestick ! Men squabble about prece- 
dence because they are doubtful about their condition, as Irish- 
men will insist upon it that you are determined to insult and 
trample upon their beautiful country, whether you are thinking 
about it orsmo ; men young to the world mistrust the bearing 
of others towards them, because they mistrust themselves. I 
have seen many sneaks and much cringing of course in the 
world ; but the fault of gentlefolks is generally the contrary — 
an absurd doubt of the intentions of others towards us, and a 
perpetual assertion of our twopenny dignity, which nobody is 
thinking of wounding. 

As a young man, if the Lord I knew did not happen to no- 
tice me, the next time I met him I used to envelope myself in 
my dignity, and treat his lordship with such a tremendous hau - 


>o 


SKETCHES AND TEA EELS IN LONDON'. 


t^ur and killing coolness of demeanor, that you might have fan- 
cied I was an Earl at least, and he a menial upon whom I trampled. 
Whereas he was a simple, good-natured creature who had no 
idea of insulting or slighting me, and, indeed, scarcely any idea 
about any subject, except racing and shooting. Young men 
have this uneasiness in society, because they are thinking about 
themselves : Fogies are happy and tranquil, because they are 
taken advantage of, and enjoying, without suspicion, the good- 
nafure and good offices of other well-bred people. 

Have you not often wished for yourself, or some other dear 
friend, ten thousand a year? It is natural that you should 
like, such a good thing as ten thousand a year; and all the 
pleasures and comforts which it brings. So also it is natural 
that a man should like the society of people well-to-do in the 
world ; who make their houses pleasant, who gather pleasant 
persons about them, who have fine pictures on their walls,, 
pleasant books in their libraries, pleasant parks and town and' 
country houses, good cooks and good cellars : if I were coming 
to dine with you, I would rather have agood dinner than a bad 
one ; if so-and-so is as good as you and possesses these things,, 
he, in so far, is better than you who do not possess them : there- 
fore I had rather go to his house in Belgravia than to your 
lodgings in Kentishtown. That is the rationale of living in 
good company. An absurd, conceited, high-and-mighty young 
man hangs back, at once insolent and bashful : an honest, sim- 
ple, quiet, easy, clear-sighted Fogy steps in and takes the goods 
which the gods provide, without elation as without squeamish- 
ness. 

It is only a few men who attain simplicity in early life. 
This man has his conceited self-importance to be cured of ; that 
has his conceited bashfulness to be “ taken out of him,” as the 
phrase is. You have a disquiet which you try to hide, and you 
put on a haughty guarded manner. You are suspicious of the 
good-will of the company round about you, or of the estimation 
in which they hold you. You sit mum at table. *ft is not your 
place to “put yourself forward.” You are thinking about your- 
self, that is ; you are suspicious about that personage and 
everybody else : that is, you are not frank ; that is, you are not 
well-bred ; that is, you are not agreeable. I would instance 
my young friend Mumford as a painful example — one of the 
wittiest, cheeriest, cleverest, and most honest of fellows of his 
own circle ; but having the honor to dine the other day at Mr. 
Hobanob’s, where his Excellency the Crimean Minister and 
several gentlemen of humor and wit were assembled, Mumford 


SKETCHES AND ERA VELS IN LONDON 4 gi 

did not open his mouth once for the purpose of conversation, 
but sat and ate his dinner as silently as a brother of LaTrappe. 

He was thinking with too much distrust of himself (and of 
others by consequence) as Toplady was thinking of himself in 
the little affair in Hyde Park to which I have alluded in the 
former chapter. When Mumford is an honest Fogy, like some 
folks, he will neither distrust his host, nor his company, nor 
himself ; he will make the best of the hour and the people 
round about him ; he will scorn tumbling over head and 
heels for his dinner, but he will take and give his part 
of the good things, join in the talk and laugh unaffectedly, 
nay, actually tumble over head and heels, perhaps, if he has a 
talent that way ; not from a wish to show off his powers, but 
from a sheer good-humor and desire to oblige. Whether as 
guest or as entertainer, your part and business in society is to 
make people as happy and as easy as you can ; the master 
gives you his best wine and welcome — you give, in your turn, a 
smiling face, a disposition to be pleased and to please ; and 
my good young friend who read this, don’t doubt about yourself, 
or think about your precious person. When you have got on 
your best coat and waistcoat, and have your dandy shirt and 
tie arranged — consider these as so many settled things, and go 
forward and through your business. 

That is why people in what is called the great world are 
commonly better bred than persons less fortunate in their con- 
dition : not that they are better in reality, but from circum- 
stances they are never uneasy about their position in the world : 
therefore they are more honest and simple : therefore they are 
better bred than Growler, who scowls at the great man a defi- 
ance and a determination that he will not be trampled upon : 
or poor Fawner, who goes quivering down on his knees, and 
licks my lord’s shoes. But 1 think in our world— at least in 
my experience — there are even more Growlers than Fawners. 

It will be seen by the above remark, that a desire to shine 
or to occupy a marked place in society does not constitute my 
idea of happiness, or become the character of a discreet Fogy, 
Time, which has dimmed the lustre of his waistcoats, allayed 
the violence of his feelings, and sobered down his head with 
gray, should give to the whole of his life a quiet neutral tinge ; 
out of which calm and reposeful condition an honest okl Fogy 
looks on the world, and the struggle there of women and men. 
I doubt whether this is not better than struggling yourself, for 
you preserve your interest and do not lose your temper. Suc- 
ceeding ? What is the great use of succeeding? Failing? 

3 1 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


482 

. Where is the great harm ? It seems to you a matter of vast 
interest at one time of your life whether you shall be a lieuten- 
ant or colonel — whether you shall or shall not be invited to the 
Duchess’s party — whether you shall get the place you and a 
hundred other competitors are trying for — whether Miss will 
have you or not : what the deuce does it all matter a few years 
afterwards ? Do you, Jones, mean to intimate a desire that 
History should occupy herself with your paltry personality ? 
The Future does not care whether you were a captain or a 
private soldier. You get a card to the Duchess’s party : it is 
no more or less than a ball, or a breakfast, like other balls or 
breakfasts. You are half-distracted because Miss won’t have 
you and takes the other fellow, or you get her (as I did Mrs. 
Pacifico) and find that she is quite a different thing from what 
you expected. Psha ! These things appear as nought — when 
Time passes — Time the consoler — Time the anodyne — Time 
the gray calm satirist, whose sad smile seems to say, Look, O 
man, at the vanity of the objects you pursue, and of yourself 
who pursue them ! 

But on the one hand, if there is an alloy in all success, is 
there not a something wholesome in all disappointment? To 
endeavor to regard them both benevolently, is the task of a 
philosopher ; and he who can do so is a very lucky Fogy. 


CHILD'S PANTIES: 

AND A REMONSTRANCE CONCERNING THEM.* 

I. 

Sir, — As your publication finds its way to almost every 
drawing-room table in this metropolis, and is read by the young 
and old in every family, I beseech you to give admission to the 
remonstrance of an unhappy parent, and to endeavor to put a 
step to a practice which appears to me to be increasing daily, 
and h likely to operate most injuriously upon the health, morals, 
and comfort of society in general. 


* Addressed to Mr, Punch, 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 483 

The awful spread of Juvenile Parties, sir, is the fact to 
which I would draw your attention. There is no end to those 
entertainments, and if the custom be not speedily checked, 
people will be obliged to fly from London at Christmas, and 
hide their children during the holidays. I gave mine warning 
in a speech at breakfast this day, and said with tears in my 
eyes that if the Juvenile Party system went on, I would take a 
house at Margate next winter, for that, by heavens ! I could 
not bear another Juvenile Season in London. 

If they would but transfer Innocents’ Day to the summer 
holidays, and let the children have their pleasures in May or 
June, we might get on. But now in this most ruthless and cut- 
throat season of sleet, thaw, frost, wind, snow, mud, and sore 
throats, it is quite a tempting of fate to be going much abroad ; 
and this is the time of all others that is selected for the amuse- 
ment of our little darlings. 

As the first step towards the remedying of the evil of which 
I complain, I am obliged to look Mr. Punch himself in his ven- 
erable beard, and say, “You sir, have, by your agents, caused 
not a little of the mischief. I desire that, during Christmas 
time at least, Mr. Leech should be abolished, or sent to take a 
holiday. Judging from his sketches, I should say that he must 
be endowed with a perfectly monstrous organ of philoprogeni- 
tiveness; he revels in the delineation of the dearest and most 
beautiful little boys and girls in turn-down collars and broad 
sashes, and produces in your Ahnanac a picture of a child’s 
costume ball, in which he has made the little wretches in the 
dresses of every age, and looking so happy, beautiful, and 
charming, that I have carefully kept the picture from the sight 
of the women and children of my own household, and — I will 
not say burned it, for I had not the heart to do that — but 
locked it away privately, lest they should conspire to have a 
costume ball themselves, and little Polly should insist upon 
appearing in the dress of Anne Boleyne, or little Jacky upon 
turning out as an ancient Briton.” 

An odious, revolting and disagreeable practice, sir, I say, 
ought not to be described in a manner so atrociously pleasing. 
The real satirist has no right to lead the public astray about 
the Juvenile Fete nuisance, and to describe a child’s ball as if 
it was a sort of Paradise, and the little imps engaged as happy 
and pretty as so many cherubs. They should be drawn, one 
and all, as hideous — disagreeable — distorted — affected — jeal- 
ous of each other — dancing awkwardly — with shoes too tight 
for them — over-eating themselves at supper — very unwell (and 


484 SKE TONES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

deservedly so) the next morning, with mamma administering a 
mixture made after the Doctor’s prescription, and which should 
be painted awfully black, in an immense large teacup, and (as 
might be shown by the horrible expression on the little patient’s 
face) of the most disgusting flavor. Banish, I say, that Mr.- 
Leech during Christmas time, at least ; for, by a misplaced 
kindness and adsurd fondness for children, he is likely to do 
them and their parents an incalculable quantity of harm. 

As every man, sir, looks at the world out of his own eyes 
or spectacles, or in other words, speaks of it as he finds it him- 
self, I will lay before you my own case, being perfectly sure that 
many another parent will sympathize with me. My family, 
already inconveniently large, is yet constantly on the increase, 
and it is out of the question that Mrs. Spec * should go to par- 
ties, as that admirable woman has the best of occupation at 
home ; where she is always nursing the baby. Hence it be- 
comes the father’s duty to accompany his children abroad, and 
to give them pleasure during the holidays. 

Our own place of residence is in South Carolina Place, 
Clapham road North, in one of the most healthy of the suburbs 
of this great City. But our relatives and acquaintances are 
numerous ; and they are spread all over the town and its out- 
skirts. Mrs. S. has sisters married, and dwelling respectively 
in Islington, Haverstock Hill, Bedford Place, Upper Baker 
Street, and Tyburn Gardens ; besides the children’s grand- 
mother, Kensington, Gravel Pits, whose parties we are all 
of course obliged to attend. A very great connection of ours, 
and nearly related to a B-r-n-t and M. P., lives not a hundred 
miles from B-lg-ve Square. I could enumerate a dozen more 
places where our kinsmen or intimate friends are — heads of 
families every one of them, with their quivers more or less full 
of little arrows. 

What is the consequence ? I herewith send it to you in the 
shape of these eighteen enclosed notes, written in various styles 
more or less correct and corrected, from Miss Fanny’s, aged 
seven, who hopes in round hand, that her dear cousins will 
come and drink tea with her on New Year’s Eve, her birthday, 
— to that of the Governess of the B-r-n-t in question, who re- 
quests the pleasure of our company at a ball, a conjuror, and a 
Christmas Tree. Mrs. Spec, for the valid reason above stated, 
cannot frequent these meetings : I am the deplorable chaperon 
of the young people. I am called upon to conduct my family 
five miles to tea at six o’clock. No count is taken of our per- 

* A name sometime* assumed by the writer in his contributions to Punch . 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 48 ^ 

sonal habits, hours of dinner, or intervals of rest. We are 
made the victims of an infantile conspiracy, nor will the lady of 
the house hear of any revolt or denial. 

“ Why/’ says she, with the spirit which becomes a woman 
and mother, “ you go to your tnd?Ls parties eagerly enough t 
what an unnatural wretch you must be to grudge your children 
their pleasures ! ” She looks round, sweeps all six of them 
into her arms, whilst the baby on her lap begins to bawl, and 
you are assailed by seven pairs of imploring eyes, against which 
there is no appeal. You must go. If you are dying of lum- 
bago, if you are engaged to the best of dinners, if you are long- 
ing to stop at home and read Macaulay, you must give up all 
and go. 

And it is not to one party or two, but almost all. You 
must go to the Gravel Pits, otherwise the grandmother will cut 
the children out of her will, and leave her property to her other 
grandchildren. If you refuse Islington, and accept Tyburn 
Gardens, you sneer at a poor relation, and acknowledge a rich 
one readily enough. If you decline Tyburn Gardens, you fling 
away the chances of the poor dear children in life, and the 
hopes of the cadetship for little Jacky. If you go to Hamp- 
stead, having declined Bedford Place, it is because you never 
refuse an invitation to Hampstead, where they make much of 
you, and Miss Maria is pretty, (as you think, though your wife 
doesn’t,) and do not care for the Doctor in Bedford Place. 
And if you accept Bedford Place you dare not refuse Upper 
Baker Street, because there is a coolness between the two fami- 
lies, and you must on no account seem to take part with one or 
the other. 

In this way many a man besides myself, I dare say, finds 
himself miserably tied down, and a helpless prisoner, like Gul- 
liver in the hands of the Lilliputians. Let us just enumerate 
a few of the miseries of the pitiable parental slave. 

In the first place, examining the question in a pecuniary 
point of view. The expenses of children’s toilets at this pres- 
ent time are perfectly frightful. 

My eldest boy, Gustavus, at home from Dr. Birch’s Acad- 
emy, Rodwell Regis, wears turquoise studs, fine linen shirts, 
white waistcoats, and shiny boots : and, when I proposed that 
he should go to a party in Berlin gloves, asked me if I wished 
that he should be mistaken for a footman ? My second, 
Augustus, grumbles about getting his elder brother’s clothes, 
nor could he be brought to accommodate himself to Gustavus’s 
waistcoats at all, had not his mother coaxed him by the loan of 


4&6 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

her chain and watch, which latter the child broke after many 
desperate attempts to wind it up. As for the little fellow, 
Adolphus, his mother has him attired in a costume partly 
Scotch, partly Hungarian, mostly buttons, and with a Louis 
Quatorze hat and scarlet feather, and she curls this child’s hair 
with her own blessed tongs every night. 

I wish she would do as much for the girls, though : but no, 
Monsieur Floridor must do that : and accordingly, every day 
this season, that abominable little Frenchman, who is, I have 
no doubt, a Red Republican, and smells of cigars and hair-oil, 
comes over, and, at a cost of eighteenpence par fete, figs out 
my little creatures’ heads with fixature, bandoline, crinoline — 
the deuce knows what. 

The bill for silk stockings, sashes, white frocks, is so enor- 
mous, that I have not been able to pay my own tailor these 
three years. 

The bill for flys to ’Amstid and back, to Hizzlington and 
take up, &c., is fearful. The drivers, in this extra weather, 
must be paid extra, and they drink extra. Having to go to Hack- 
ney in the snow, on the night of the 5th January, our man was 
so hopelessly inebriated, that I was compelled to get out 
and drive myself ; and I am now, on what is called Twelfth Day 
(with, of course, another child’s party before me for the even- 
ing), writing this from my bed, sir, with a severe cold, a violent 
toothache, and a most acute rheumatism. 

As I hear the knock of our medical man, whom an anxious 
wife has called in, I close this letter ; asking leave, however, if 
I survive, to return to this painful subject next week. And, 
wishing you a merry ! New Year, I have the honor to be, dear 
Mr. Punchy 

Your constant reader, 

Spec. 


11. 

Conceive, Sir, that in spite of my warning and entreaty we 
were invited to no less than three Child’s Parties last Tuesday ; 
to two of which a lady in this house, who shall be nameless, 
desired that her children should be taken. On Wednesday we 
had Dr. Lens’s miscroscope ; and on Thursday you were good 
enough to send me your box for the Haymarket Theatre ; and 
of course Mrs. S. and the children are extremely obliged to you 
for the attention. I did not mind the theatre so much. I sat 
in the back of the box, and fell asleep. I wish there was a 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 487 

room with easy chairs and silence enjoined, whither parents 
might retire, in the houses where Children’s Parties are given. 
But no — it would be of no use : the fiddling and pianoforte- 
playing and scuffling and laughing of the children would keep 
you awake. 

I am looking out in the papers for some eligible schools 
where there shall be no vacations — I can’t bear these festivities 
much longer. I begin to hate children in their evening dresses ; 
when children are attired in those absurd best clothes, what 
can you expect from them but affectation and airs of fashion ? 
One day last year, sir, having to conduct the two young ladies 
who then frequented juvenile parties, I found them, upon enter- 
ing the fly, into which they had preceded me under convoy 
of their maid — I found them — in what condition, think you ? 
Why, with the skirts of their stiff muslin frocks actually thrown 
over their heads, so that they should not crumple in the car- 
riage ! A child who cannot go into society but with a muslin 
frock in this position, I say, had best stay in the nursery in her 
pinafore. If you are not able to enter the world with your 
dress in its proper place, I say stay at home. I blushed, sir, 
to see that Mrs. S. did?vt blush when I informed her of this 
incident, but only laughed in a strange indecorous manner, and 
said that the girls must keep their dresses neat. — Neatness as 
much as you please, but I should have thought Neatness would 
wear her frock in the natural way. 

And look at the children when they arrive at their place of 
destination ; what processes of coquetry they are made to go 
through ! They are first carried into a room where there are 
pins, combs, looking-glasses, and lady’s-maids, who shake the 
children’s ringlets out, spread abroad their great immense 
sashes and ribbons, and finally send them full sail into the 
dancing-room. With what a monstrous precocity they ogle 
their own faces in the looking-glasses ; I have seen my boys, 
Gustavus and Adolphus, grin into the glass, and arrange their 
curls or the ties of their neck-cloths with as much eagerness as 
any grown-up man could show, who was going to pay a visit to 
the lady of his heart. With what an abominable complacency 
they get out their little gloves, and examine their silk stockings !. 
How can they be natural or unaffected when they are so pre- 
posterously conceited about their fine clothes ? The other day 
we met one of Gus’s school-fellows, Master Chaffers, at a party, 
who entered the room with a little gibus hat under his arm, and 
to be sure made his bow with the aplomb of a dancing-master 
of sixty ; and my boys, who I suspect envied their comrade the 


4 88 SKE TCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 

gibus hat, began to giggle and sneer at him ; and, further to 
disconcert him, Gus goes up to him and says, “ Why, Chaffers v 
you consider yourself a deuced fine fellow, but there’s a straw 
on your trousers.” Why shouldn’t there be ! And why should 
that poor boy be called upon to blush because he came to a 
party in a hack-cab ? I, for my part, ordered the children to 
walk home on that night, in order to punish them for their 
pride. It rained. Gus wet and spoiled his shiny boots, Dol 
got a cold, and my wife scolded me for cruelty. 

As to the airs which the wretches give themselves about 
dancing, I need not enlarge upon them here, for the dangerous 
artist of the “ Rising Generation ” has already taken them in 
hand. Not that his satire does the children the least good : 
they don’t see anything absurd in courting pretty girls, or in as- 
serting the superiority of their own sex over the female. A 
few nights since, I saw Master Sultan at a juvenile ball, stand- 
ing at the door of the dancing-room, egregiously displaying his 
muslin handkerchief, and waving it about as if he was in doubt 
to which of the young beauties he should cast it. “ Why don’t 
you dance, Master Sultan ? ” says I. “ My good sir,” he an- 
swered, “ just look round at those girls and say if I can dance ? ” 
Blase and selfish now, what will that boy be, sir, when his 
whiskers grow ? 

And when you think how Mrs. Mainchance seeks out rich 
partners for her little boys — how my own admirable Eliza has 
warned her children — “ My dears, I would rather you should 
dance with your Brown cousins than your Jones cousins,” who 
are a little rough in their manners (the fact being, that our 
sister Maria Jones lives at Islington, while Fanny Brown is an 
Upper Baker Street lady) ; — when I have heard my dear wife, 
I say, instruct our boy, on going to a party at the Baronet’s, 
by no means to neglect his cousin Adeliza, but to dance with 
her as soon as ever he can engage her — what can I say, sir, 
but that the world of men and boys is the same — that society 
is poisoned at its source — and that our little chubby-cheeked 
cherubim are instructed to be artful and egotistical, when you 
would think by their faces they were just fresh from heaven. 

Among the very little children, I confess I get a consolation 
as I watch them, in seeing the artless little girls walking after 
the boys to whom they incline, and courting them by a hundred 
innocent little wiles and caresses, putting out their little hands 
and inviting them to dance, seeking them out to pull crackers 
with them, and begging them to read the mottoes, and so forth — • 
this is as it should be — this is natural and kindly. The women, 


SKETCHES AND TEA EELS IN LONDON 489 

by rights, ought to court the men ; and they would if we but 
left them alone.* 

And, absurd as the games are, I own I like to see some 
thirty or forty of the creatures on the floor in a ring, playing at 
petits jeux , of all ages and sexes, from the most insubordinate 
infanthood of Master Jacky, who will crawl out of the circle, 
and talks louder than anybody in it, though he can’t speak, to 
blushing Miss Lily, who is just conscious that she is sixteen — 
I own, I say, that I can’t look at such a circlet or chaplet of 
children, as it were, in a hundred different colors, laughing and 
happy, without a sort of pleasure. How they laugh, how they 
twine together, how they wave about, as if the wind was pass- 
ing over the flowers ! Poor little buds, shall you bloom long ? 
— (I then say to myself, by way of keeping up a proper frame 
of mind) — shall frosts nip you, or tempests scatter you, drought 
wither you, or rain beat you down? And oppressed with my 
feelings, I go below and get some of the weak negus with which 
Children’s Parties are refreshed. 

At those houses where the magic lantern is practised, I still 
sometimes get a degree of pleasure, by hearing the voices of 
the children in the dark, and the absurd remarks which they 
make as the various scenes are presented — as, in the dissolving 
views, Cornhill changes into Grand Cairo, as Cupid comes 
down with a wreath, and pops it on to the head of the Duke 
of Wellington, as Saint Peter’s at Rome suddenly becomes 
illuminated, and fireworks, not the least like real fireworks, be- 
gin to go off from Fort St. Angelo — it is certainly not unpleas- 
ant to hear the “ 0-0-0’s ” of the audience, and the little children 
chattering in the darkness. But I think I used to like the “ Pull 
devil, pull baker,” and the Doctor Syntax of our youth, much 
better than all your new-fangled dissolving views and pyrotech- 
nic imitations. 

As for the conjuror, I am sick of him. There is one con- 
juror I have met so often during this year and the last, that the 
man looks quite guilty when the folding doors are opened and 
he sees my party of children, and myself amongst the seniors 
in the back rows. He forgets his jokes when he beholds me : 
his wretched claptraps and waggeries fail him : he trembles, 
falters, and turns pale. 

I on my side too feel reciprocally uneasy. What right have 
we to be staring that creature out of his silly countenance ? 
Very likely he has a wife and family dependent for their bread 

♦On our friend’s manuscript .there is written, in a female handwriting, “Vulgar, ini' 
modest.-E. S.” 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


49 ° 

upon his antics. I should be glad to admire them if I could ; 
but how do so ? When I see him squeeze an orange or a can- 
non-ball away into nothing, as it were, or multiply either into 
three cannon-balls or oranges, I know the others are in his 
pocket somewhere. I know that he doesn’t put out his eye 
when he sticks the penknife into it : or that after swallowing 
(as the miserable humbug pretends to do) a pocket-handker- 
chief, he cannot bv any possibility convert it into a quantity of 
colored wood-shavings. These flimsy ai tides may amuse chil- 
dren, but not us. I think I shall go and sit down below 
amongst the servants whilst this wretched man pursues his 
idiotic delusions before the children. 

And the supper, sir, of which our darlings are made to par- 
take. Have they dined ? I ask. Do they have supper at 
home, and why do not they ? Because it is unwholesome. If 
it is unwholesome, why do they have supper at all? I have 
mentioned the wretched quality of the negus. How they can 
administer such stuff to children I can’t think. Though only 
last week I heard a little boy, Master Swilby, at Miss Waters’, 
say that he had drunk nine glasses of it, and eaten I don’t 
know how many tasteless sandwiches and insipid cakes ; after 
which feats he prQposed to fight my youngest son. 

As for that Christmas Tree, which we have from the Ger- 
mans — anybody who knows what has happened to them may 
judge what will befall us from following their absurd customs. 
Are we to put up pine-trees in our parlors, with wax-candles 
and bonbons, after the manner of the ancient Druids ? Are 
we * * * ? 

* * My dear sir, my manuscript must here abruptly ter- 

minate. Mrs. S. has just come into my study, and my daugh- 
ter enters, grinning behind her, with twenty-five little notes, 
announcing that Master and Miss Spec request the pleasure of 
Miss Brown, Miss F. Brown, and M. A. Brown’s company on 
the 25th instant. There is to be a conjuror in the back draw- 
ing-room, a magic lantern in my study, a Christmas Tree in the 
dining-room, dancing in the drawing-room — “ And, my dear, 
we can have whist in our bedroom,” my wife says. “You 
know we must be civil to those who have been so kind to our 
darling children.” 


Spec. 


SKETCHES AND TEA FEES TN LONDON . 


491 


THE CURATES WALK. 

1. 

It was the third out of the four bell-buttons at the door at 
which my friend the curate . pulled ; and the summons was 
answered after a brief interval. 

I must premise that the house before which we stopped was 
No. 14 Sedan Buildings, leading out of Great Guelph Street, 
Dettingen Street, Culloden Street, Minden Square ; and Upper 
and Lower Caroline Row form part of the same quarter — a 
very queer and solemn quarter to walk in, I think, and one 
which always suggests Fielding’s novels to me. I can fancy 
Captain Booth strutting out of the very door at which we were 
standing, in tarnished lace, with his hat cocked over his eyes 
and his: hand on his hanger ; or Lady Bellaston’s chair and 
bearers coming -swinging down Great Guelph Street, which we 
have just quitted to enter Sedan Buildings. 

Sedan Buildings is a little flagged square, ending abruptly 
with the huge walls of Bluck’s Brewery. The houses, by many 
degrees smaller than the large decayed tenements in Great 
Guelph Street, are still not uncomfortable, although shabby. 
There are brass-plates on the doors, two on some of them : or 
simple names, as “ Lunt,” “ Padgemore,” &c. (as if no other 
statement about Lunt and Padgemore were necessary at all), 
under the bells. There are pictures of mangles before two of 
the houses, and a gilt arm with a hammer sticking out from 
one. I never saw a Goldbeater. What sort of a being is he 
that he always sticks out his ensign in dark, mouldy, lonely, 
dreary, but somewhat respectable places ? What powerful 
Mulciberian fellows they must be, those Goldbeaters, whacking 
and thumping with huge mallets at the precious metals all day. 
I wonder what is Goldbeaters’ skin ? and do they get impreg- 
nated with the metal ? and are their great arms under their 
clean shirts on Sundays, all gilt and shining? 

It is a quiet, kind, respectable place somehow, in spite of 
its shabbiness. Two pewter pints and a jolly little half-pint 
are hanging on the railings in perfect confidence, basking in 
what linle sun comes into the Court. A group of small chil- 
dren are making an ornament of oyster-shells in cne comer* 


49 2 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


Who has that half-pint ? Is it for one of those small ones, or 
for some delicate female recommended to take beer? The 
windows in the Court, upon some of which the sun glistens, 
are not cracked, and pretty clean ; it is only the black and 
dreary look behind which gives them a poverty-stricken appear- 
ance. No curtains or blinds. A bird-cage and very few pots 
of flowers here and there. This — with the exception of a 
milkman talking to a whitey-brown woman, made up of bits of 
flannel and stripes of faded chintz and calico seemingly, and 
holding a long bundle which cried — this was all I saw in Sedan 
Buildings while we were waiting until the door should open. 

At last the door was opened, and by a porteress so small, 
that I wonder how she ever could have lifted up the latch. She 
bobbed a curtsey and smiled at the Curate, whose face beamed 
with benevolence too, in reply to that salutation. 

“ Mother not at home ? ” says Frank Whitestock, patting 
the child on the head. 

“ Mother's out charing, sir,” replied the girl ; “ but please 
to walk up, sir.” And she led the way up one and two pair of 
stairs to that apartment in the house which is called the second- 
floor front ; in which was the abode of the charwoman. 

There were two young persons in the room, of the respect- 
ive ages of eight and five, I should think. She of five years 
of age was hemming a duster, being perched on a chair at the 
table in the middle of the room. The elder, of eight, politely 
wiped a chair with a cloth for the accommodation of the good- 
natured Curate, and came and stood between his knees, imme- 
diately alongside of his umbrella, which also reposed there, and 
which she by no means equalled in height. 

“ ^hese children attend my school at St. Timothy’s,” Mr. 
Whitestock said, “ and Betsy keeps the house while her mother 
is from home.” 

Anything cleaner or neater than this house it is impossible 
to conceive. There was a big bed, which must have been the 
resting-place of the whole of this little family. There were 
three or four religious prints on the walls ; besides two framed 
and glazed, of Prince Coburg and the Princess Charlotte. 
There were brass candlesticks, and a lamp on the chimney- 
piece, and a cupboard in the corner, decorated with near half 
a dozen plates, yellow-bowls, and crockery. And on the table 
there with two or three bits of dry bread, and a jug with water, 
with which ose three young people (it being then nearly three 
o’clock) were about to take their meal called tea. 

That iittie Betsy who looks so small is nearly ten years old : 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


493 


and has been a mother ever since the age of about five. I 
mean to say., that her own mother having to go out upon her 
charing operations, Betsy assumes command of the room during 
her parent’s absence : has nursed her sisters from babyhood 
up to the present time : keeps order over them, and the house 
clean as you see it ; and goes out occasionally and transacts 
the family purchases of bread, moist sugar, and mother’s 
tea. They dine upon bread, tea and breakfast upon bread 
when they have it, or go to bed without a morsel. Their holi- 
day is Sunday, which they spend at Church and Sunday-school. 
The younger children scarcely ever go out, save on that day, 
but sit sometimes in the sun, which comes in pretty pleasantly : 
sometimes biue in the cold, for they very seldom see a fire ex- 
cept to heat irons by, when mother has a job of linen to get 
up. Father was a journeyman bookbinder, who died four years 
ago, and is buried among thousands and thousands of the 
nameless dead who lie crowding the black churchyard of St. 
Timothy’s parish. 

The Curate evidently took especial pride in Victoria, the 
youngest of these three children of the charwoman, and caused 
Betsy to fetch a book which lay at the window, and bade her 
read. It was a Missionary Register which the Curate opened 
hap-hazard, and this baby began to read out in an exceedingly 
clear and resolute voice about — 

“ The island of Raritongo is the least frequented of all the 
Caribbean Archipelago. Wankyfungo is at four leagues S. E. 
by E., and the peak of the crater of Shuagnahua is distinctly visi- 
ble. The “ Irascible ” entered Raritongo Bay on the evening 
of Thursday 29th, and the next day the Rev. Mr. Flethers, Mrs. 
Flethers, and their nine children, and Shangpooky, the native 
converted at Cacabawgo, landed and took up their residence at 
the house of Ratatatua, the Principal Chief, who entertained 
us with yams and a pig,” &c., &c., &c. 

“ Raritongo, Wankyfungo, Archipelago.” I protest this 
little woman read off each of these long words with an ease 
which perfectly astonished me. Many a lieutenant in her 
Majesty's Heavies would be puzzled with words half the length. 
Whitestock, by way of reward for her scholarship, gave her 
another pat on the head ; having received which present with 
a curtsey, she went and put the book back into the window, 
and clambering back into the chair, resumed the hemming of 
the blue duster. 

I suppose it was the smallness of these people, as well as 
their singular, neat, and tidy behavior, which interested me so. 


494 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


Here were three creatures not so high as the table, with all the 
labors, duties and cares of life upon their little shoulders, 
working and doing their duty like the biggest of my readers ; 
regular, laborious, cheerful, — content with small pittances, 
practising a hundred virtues of thrift and order. 

Elizabeth at ten years of age, might walk out of this house 
and take the command of a small establishment. She can 
wash, get up linen, cook, make purchases and buy bargains. If 
I were ten years old and three feet in height, I would marry 
her, and we would go and live in a cupboard, and share the lit- 
tle half-pint pot for dinner. ’Melia, eight years of age, though 
inferior in accomplishments to her sister, is her equal in size, 
and can wash, scrub, hem, go errands, put her hand to the 
dinner, and make herself generally useful. In a word, she is 
fit to be a little housemaid, and to make everything but the 
beds, which she cannot as yet reach up to. As for Victoria’s 
qualifications, they have been mentioned before. I wonder 
whether the Princess Alice can read off “ Raritongo,” &c., as 
glibly as this surprising little animal. 

I asked the Curate’s permission to make these young ladies 
a present, and accordingly produced the sum of sixpence to be 
divided amongst the three. “What will you do with it?” I 
said, laying down the coin. 

They answered, all three at once, and in a little chorus, 
“We’ll give it to mother.” This verdict caused the disburse- 
ment of another sixpence, and it was explained to them that 
the sum was for their own private pleasures, and each was 
called upon to declare what she would purchase. 

Elizabeth says, “ I would like twopenn’orth of meat, if you 
please, sir.” 

’Melia : “ Ha’porth of treacle, three-farthings’-worth of 
milk, and the same of fresh bread.” 

Victoria, speaking very quick, and gasping in an agitated 
manner : “ Ha’pny — aha — orange, and ha’pny — aha — apple,, 
and ha’pny — aha — treacle, and — and — ” here her imagination 
failed her. She did not know what to do with the rest of the 
money. 

At this ’Melia actually interposed, “ Suppose she and Vic- 
toria subscribed a farthing apiece out of their money, so that 
Betsy might have a quarter of a pound of meat ? ” She added 
that her sister wanted it, and that it would do her good. Upon 
my word, she made the proposal and the calculations in an in- 
stant, and all of her own accord. And before we left them, 
JBetsy had put on the queerest little black shawl and bonne^ 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


49S 

and had a mug and a basket ready to receive the purchases in 
question. 

Sedan Buildings has a particularly friendly look to me 
since that day. Peace be with you, O thrifty, kindly, simple, lov- 
ing little maidens ! May their voyage in life prosper ! Think 
of the great journey before them, and the little cock-boat 
manned by babies venturing over the great stormy ocean. 


ii. 

Following the steps of little Betsy with her mug and 
basket, as she goes pattering down the street, we watch her 
into a grocer’s shop, where a startling placard with “ Down 
Again ! ” written on it announces that the Sugar Market is 
still in a depressed condition — and where she no doubt nego- 
tiates the purchase of a certain quantity of molasses. A little 
further on, in Lawfeldt Street, is Mr. Filch’s fine silversmith’s 
shop, where a man may stand for a half hour and gaze with 
ravishment at the beautiful gilt cups and tankards, the stun- 
ning waistcoat-chains, 'the little white cushions laid out with 
delightful diamond pins, gold horseshoes and splinter-bars, 
pearl owls, turquoise lizards and dragons, enamelled monkeys, 
and all sorts of agreeable monsters for your neck-cloth. If I 
live to be a hundred, or if the girl of my heart were waiting for 
me at the corner of the street, I never could pass Mr. Filch’s 
shop without having a couple of minutes’ good stare at the 
window. I like to fancy myself dressed up in some of the 
jewelry. “ Spec, you rogue,” I say, “ suppose you were to 
get leave to wear three or four of those rings on your fingers ; 
to stick that opal, round which twists a brilliant serpent with a 
ruby head, into your blue satin neck-cloth; and to sport that 
gold jack-chain on your waistcoat. You might walk in the Park 
with that black whalebone prize-riding-whip, which has a head 
the size of a snuff-box, surmounted with a silver jockey on a 
silver race-horse; and what a sensation you would create, if 
you took that large ram’s horn with the cairngorm top out of 
your pocket, and offered a pinch of rappee to the company 
round ! ** A little attorney’s clerk is staring in at the window, 
in whose mind very similar ideas are passing. What would he 
not give to wear that gold pin next Sunday in his blue hunting 
neck-cloth ? The ball of it is almost as big as those which are 
painted over the side door of Mr. Filch’s shop, which is down 
that passage which leads into Trotter’s Court. 


496 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

I have dined at a house where the silver dishes and covers 
came from Filch’s, let out to their owner by Mr. Filch for the 
day, and in charge of the grave-looking man whom I mistook 
for the butler. Butlers and ladies’-maids innumerable have 
audiences of Mr. Filch in his back parlor. There are suits of 
jewels which he and his shop have known for a half century 
past, so often have they been pawned to him. When we read 
in the Court Journal of Lady Fitzball’s head-dress of lappets 
and superb diamonds, it is because the jewels get a day rule 
from Filch’s, and come back to his iron box as soon as the 
drawing-room is over. These jewels become historical among 
pawnbrokers. It was here that Lady Prigsby brought her dia- 
monds one evening of last year, and desired hurriedly to raise 
two thousand pounds upon them, when Filch respectfully 
pointed out to her ladyship that she had pawned the stones 
already to his comrade, Mr. Tubal, of Charing Cross. And, 
taking his hat, and putting the case under his arm, he went 
with her ladyship to the hack-cab in which she had driven to 
Lawfeldt Street, entered the vehicle with her, and they drove 
in silence to the back entrance of her mansion in Monmouth 
Square, where Mr. Tubal’s young man was still seated in the 
hall, waiting until her ladyship should be undressed. 

We walked round the splendid shining shop and down the 
passage, which would be dark but that the gas-lit door is always 
swinging to and fro, as the people who come to pawn go in and 
out. You may be sure there is a gin-shop handy to all pawn- 
brokers’. 

A lean man in a dingy dress is walking lazily up and down 
the flag of Trotter’s Court. His ragged trousers trail in the 
slimy mud there. The doors of the pawnbroker’s and of the 
gin-shop on the other side, are banging to and fro : a little girl 
comes out of the former, with a tattered old handkerchief, and 
goes up and gives something to the dingy man. ; It is nine- 
pence, just raised on his waistcoat. The man bids the child 
to “ cut away home,” and when she is clear out of the court, 
he looks at us with a lurking scowl and walks into the gin- 
shop doors, which swing always opposite the pawnbroker’s 
shop. 

Why should he have sent the waistcoat wrapped in that 
ragged old cloth ? Why should he have sent the child into the 
pawnbroker’s box, and not have gone himself? He did not 
choose to let her see him go into the gin-shop — why drive her 
in at the opposite door ? The child knows well enough whither 
he is gone. She might as well have carried an old waistcoat in 


SKETCHES AND TEA PELS IN LONDON 


497 

her hand through the street as a ragged napkin. A sort of 
vanity, you see, drapes itself in that dirty rag ; or is it a kind 
of debauched shame, which does not like to go naked ? The 
fancy can follow the poor girl up the black alley, up the black 
stairs, into the bare room, where mother and children are 
starving, while the lazy ragamuffin, the family bully, is gone 
into the gin-shop to “try our celebrated Cream of the Valley,” 
as the bill in red letters bids him. 

“ I waited in this court the other day,” Whitestock said, 
“ just like that man, while a friend of mine went in to take, her 
husband’s tools out of pawn — an honest man — a journeyman 
shoemaker, who lives hard by.” And we went to call on the 
journeyman shoemaker — Randle’s Buildings-^-two-pair back — 
over a blacking manufactory. The blacking was made by one 
manufactor, who stood before a tub stirring up his produce, a 
good deal of which — and nothing else — was on the floor. We 
passed through this emporium, which abutted on. a dank, steam- 
ing little court, and up the narrow stair to the two-pair back. 

The shoemaker was at work with his recovered tools, and 
his wife was making woman’s shoes (an inferior branch of the 
business) by him. A shrivelled child was lying on the bed in 
the corner of the room. There was no bedstead, and indeed 
scarcely any furniture, save the little table on which lay his 
stools and shoes — a fair-haired, lank, handsome young man, 
with a wife who may have been pretty once, in better times, 
and before starvation pulled her down. She had but one thin 
gown ; it clung to a frightfully emaciated little body. 

The story was the old one. The man had been in good 
work, and had the fever. The clothes had been pawned, the 
furniture and bedstead had been sold, and they slept on the 
floor ; the tools went, and the end of all things seemed at hand, 
when the gracious apparition of the Curate, with his umbrella, 
came and cheered those stricken-down poor folks. 

The journeyman shoemaker must have been astonished at 
such a sight. He is not, or was not a church-goer. He is a 
man of advanced ” opinions ; believing that priests are hypo- 
crites, and that clergymen in general drive about in coaches- 
and-four, and eat a tithe-pig a day. This proud priest got Mr. 
Crispin a bed to lie upon, and some soup to eat ; and (being 
the treasurer of certain good folks of his parish, whose charities 
he administers) as soon as the man was strong enough to work, 
the curate lent him money wherewith to redeem his tools, and 
which our friend is paying back by instalments at this day. 
And any man who has seen these two honest men talking 

2 


498 SKETCHES AND TEA VETS IN LONDON 

together, would have said the shoemaker was the haughtiest of 
the two. 

We paid one more morning visit. This was with an order 
for work to a tailor of reduced circumstances and enlarged 
family. He had been a master, and was now forced to take 
work by the job. He who had commanded many men, was now 
fallen down to the ranks again. His wife told us all about his 
misfortunes. She is evidently very proud of them. “ He failed 
for seven thousand pounds,” the poor woman said, three or 
four times during the course of our visit. It gave her husband 
a sort of dignity to have been trusted for so much money. 

The Curate must have heard that story many times, to 
which he now listened with great patience in the tailor’s house 
— a large, clean, dreary, faint-looking room, smelling of pov- 
erty. Two little stunted, yellow-headed children, with lean 
pale faces and large protruding eyes, were at the window staring 
with all their might at Guy Fawkes, who was passing in the 
street, and making a great clattering and shouting outside, 
while the luckless tailor’s wife was prating within about her 
husband’s by-gone riches. I shall not in a hurry forget the pic- 
ture. The empty room in a dreary background ; the tailor’s 
wife in brown, stalking up and down the planks, talking 
endlessly ; the solemn children staring out of the window as the 
sunshine fell on their faces, and honest Whitestock seated, 
listening, with the tails of his coat through the chair. 

His business over with the tailor, we start again; Frank 
Whitestock trips through alley after alley, never getting any 
mud on his boots, somehow, and his white neck-cloth making a 
wonderful shine in those shady places. He has all sorts of 
acquaintance, chiefly amongst the extreme youth, assembled at 
the doors or about the gutters. There was one small person 
occupied in emptying one of these rivulets with an oyster-shell, 
for the purpose, apparently, of making an artificial lake in a 
hole hard by, whose solitary gravity and business air struck me 
much, while the Curate was very deep in conversation with a 
small coalman. A half-dozen of her comrades were congregated 
round a scraper and on a grating hard by, playing with a mangy 
little puppy, the property of the Curate’s friend. 

I know it is wrong to give large sums of money away pro- 
miscuously, but I could not help dropping a penny into the 
child’s oyster-shell, as she came forward holding it before her 
like a tray. At first her expression was one rather of wonder 
than of pleasure at this influx of capital, and was certainly quite 
-worth the small charge of one penny, at which it was purchased. 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


499 


For a moment she did not seem to know what steps to take ; 
but, having communed in her own mind, she presently resolved 
to turn them towards a neighboring apple-stall, in the direction 
of which she went without a single world of compliment passing 
between us. Now the children round the scraper were witnesses 
to the transaction. “ He’s give her a penny,” one remarked to 
another, with hopes miserably disappointed that they might 
come in for a similar present. 

She walked on to the apple-stall meanwhile, holding her 
penny behind her. And what did the other little ones do ? 
They put down the puppy as if it had been so much dross. 
And one after another they followed the penny-piece to the 
apple-stall. 


A DINNER IN THE CITY. 

i. 

Out of a mere love of variety and contrast, I think we 
cannot do better, after leaving the wretched Whitestock among 
his starving parishioners, than transport ourselves to the City, 
where we are invited to dine with the Worshipful Company of 
Bellows-Menders, at their splendid Hall in Marrow-pudding 
Lane. 

Next to eating good dinners, a healthy man with a benevo- 
lent turn of mind must like, I think, to read about them. When 
I was a boy, I had by heart the Barmecide’s feast in the 
“Arabian Nights ;” and the culinary passages in Scott’s novels 
(in which works there is a deal of good eating) always were my 
favorites. The Homeric poems are full, as everybody knows, 
of roast and boiled : and every year I look forward with 
pleasure to the newspapers of the ioth of November for the 
menu of the Lord Mayor’s feast, which is sure to appear in 
those journals. What student of history is there who does not 
remember the City dinner given to the Allied Sovereigns in 
1814? 1 1 is good even now, and to read it ought to make a man 

hungry, had he had five meals that day. In a word, I had long, 
long yearned in my secret heart to be present at a City festival. 
The last year’s papers had a bill of fare commencing with 
“ four hundred tureens of turtle, each containing five pints ; ” 
and concluding with the pine-apples and ices of the dessert. 
“Fancy two thousand pints of turtle, my love,” I have often 
§aid to Mrs. Spec, “ in a vast silver tank, smoking fragrantly, 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


500 

with lovely green islands of calipash and calipee floating about 
— why, my dear, if it had been invented in the time of Vitellius 
he would have bathed in it ! ” 

u He would have been a nasty wretch,” Mrs. Spec said, who 
thinks that cold mutton is the most wholesome food of mam 
However, when she heard what great company was to be pres- 
ent at the dinner, the Ministers of State, the Foreign Ambas- 
sadors, some of the bench of Bishops, no doubt the Judges, 
and a great portion of the Nobility, she was pleased at the card 
which was sent to her husband, and made a neat tie to my 
white neck-cloth before I set off on the festive journey. She 
warned me to be very cautious, and obstinately refused to allow 
me the Chubb door-key. 

The very card of invitation is a curiosity. It is almost as 
big as a tea-tray. It gives one ideas of a vast, enormous hos- 
pitality. Gog and Magog in livery might leave it at your door. 
II a man is to eat up that card, heaven help us, I thought ; the 
Doctor must be called in. Indeed, it was a Doctor who pro- 
cured me the placard of invitation. Like all medical men who 
have published a book upon diet, Pillkington is a great gour- 
mand, and he made a great favor of procuring the ticket for me 
from his brother of the Stock Exchange, who is a Citizen and 
a Bellows-Mender in his corporate capacity. 

We drove in Pillkington’s brougham to the place of mangez- 
vous , through the streets of the town, in the broad daylight, 
dressed out in our white waistcoats and ties ; making a sensa- 
tion upon all beholders by the premature splendor of our 
appearance. There is something grand in that hospitality of 
the citizens, who not only give you more to eat than other 
people, but who begin earlier than anybody else. Major 
Bangles, Captain Canterbury, and a host of the fashionables of 
my acquaintance were taking their morning’s ride in the Park 
as we drove through. You should have seen how they stared 
at us ! It gave me a pleasure to be able to remark mentally, 
“ Look on, gents, we too are sometimes invited to the tables of 
the great.” 

We fell in with numbers of carriages as we were approaching 
City-wards, in which reclined gentlemen with white neck-cloths 
—grand equipages of foreign ambassadors, whose uniforms, and 
stars, and gold lace glistened within the carriages, while their 
servants with colored cockades looked splendid without : these 
careered by the Doctor’s brougham horse, which was a little 
fatigued with his professional journeys in the morning. Gen- 
eral Sir Roger Bluff, K. C. B., and Col. Tucker, were stepping 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


into a cab at the United Service Club as we passed it. The 
veterans blazed in scarlet and gold lace. It seemed strange 
that men so famous, if they did not mount their chargers to go 
to dinner, should ride in any vehicle under a coach-and-six ; 
and instead of having a triumphal car to conduct them to the 
City, should go thither in a rickety cab, driven by a ragged 
charioteer smoking a dhoodeen. In Cornhill we fell into a 
line, and formed a complete regiment of the aristocracy. 
Crowds were gathered round the steps of the old hall in Mar- 
row-pudding Lane, and welcomed us nobility and gentry as we 
stepped out of our equipages at the door. The policemen 
could hardly restrain the ardor of these low fellows, and their 
sarcastic cheers were sometimes very unpleasant. There was 
one rascal who made an observation about the size of my white 
waistcoat, for which I should have liked to sacrifice him on the 
spot ; but Pillkington hurried me, as the policemen did our 
little brougham, to give place to a prodigious fine equipage 
which followed, with immense gray horses, immense footmen in 
powder, and driven by a grave coachman in an episcopal wig. 

A veteran officer in scarlet, with silver epaulets, and a pro- 
fuse quantity of bullion and silver lace, descended from this 
carriage between the two footmen, and was nearly upset by his 
curling sabre, which had twisted itself between his legs, which 
were cased in duck trousers very tight, except about the knees 
(where they bagged quite freely), and with rich long white 
straps. I thought he must be a great man by the oddness of 
his uniform. 

“ Who is the General ? ” says I, as the old warrior, dis- 
entangling himself from his scimitar, entered the outer hall. 
“ Is it the Marquis of Anglesea, or the Rajah of Sarawak ? ” 

I spoke in utter ignorance, as it appeared. “ That ! Pooh,” 
says Pillkington ; “that is Mr. Champignon, M. P., of White- 
hall Gardens and Fungus Abbey, Citizen and Beilows-Mender. 
His uniform is that of a Colonel of the Diddlesex Militia.” 
There was no end to similar mistakes on that day. A vener- 
able man with a blue and gold uniform, and a large crimson 
sword-belt and brass-scabbarded sabre, passed presently, whom 
I mistook for a foreign ambassador at the least ; whereas I 
found out that he was only a Billingsgate Commissioner — and a 
little fellow in a blue livery, which fitted him so badly that I 
thought he must be one of the hired waiters of the company, 
who had been put into a coat that didn’t belong to him, turned 
out to be a real right honorable gent, who had been a Minister 
once. 


502 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


I was conducted up stairs by my friend to the gorgeous 
drawing-room, where the company assembled, and where there 
was a picture of George IV. I cannot make out what public 
companies can want with a picture of George IV. A fellow 
with a gold chain, and in a black suit, such as the lamented Mr. 
Cooper wore preparatory to execution in the last act of George 
Barnwell, bawled out our names as we entered the apartment. 
“If my Eliza could hear that gentleman,” thought I, “roaring 
out the name of ‘ Mr. Spec ! ’ in the presence of at least two 
hundred Earls, Prelates, Judges, and distinguished characters ! ” 
It made little impression upon them, however ; and I slunk 
into the embrasure of a window, and watched the company. 

Every man who came into the room was, of course, ushered 
in with a roar. “ His Excellency the Minister of Topinambo ! ” 
the usher yelled ; and the Minister appeared, bowing, and in 
tights. “Mr. Hoggin ! The Right Honorable the Earl of 
Bareacres ! Mr. Snog ! Mr. Braddle ! Mr. Alderman Moodle ! 
Mr. Justice Bunker ! Lieut-Gen. Sir Roger Bluff ! Colonel Tuc- 
ker ! Mr. Tims ! ” with the same emphasis and mark of admira- 
tion for us all as it were. The Warden of the Bellows-Menders 
came forward and made a profusion of bows to the various 
distinguished guests as they arrived. Pie, too, was in a court- 
dress, with a sword and bag. His lady must like so to behold 
him turning out in arms and ruffles, shaking hands with Minis- 
ters, and bowing over his wine-glass to their Excellencies the 
Foreign Ambassadors. 

To be in a room with these great people gave me a thou- 
sand sensations of joy. Once, I am positive, the Secretary of 
the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office looked at me, and turning 
round to a noble lord in a red ribbon, evidently asked, “ Who 
is that ? ” Oh, Eliza, Eliza ! How I wish you had been there ! 
— or if not there, in the ladies’ gallery in the dining-hall, when 
the music began, and Mr. Shadrach, Mr. Meshech, and little 
Jack Oldboy (whom I recollect in the part of Count Almaviva 
any time these forty years), sang Non nobis , Domine. 

But I am advancing matters prematurely. We are not in 
the grand dining-hall as yet. The crowd grows thicker and 
thicker, so that you can’t see people bow as they enter any more. 
The usher in the gold chain roars out name after name : more 
ambassadors, more generals, more citizens, capitalists, bankers 
— among them Mr. Rowdy, my banker, from whom I shrank 
guiltily from private financial reasons — and, last and greatest 
of all, “ The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor ! ” 

That was a shock, such as I felt on landing at Calais for 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


5 ° 3 


the first time ; on first seeing an Eastern bazaar : on first 
catching a sight of Mrs. Spec ; a new sensation, in a word. 
Till death I shall remember that surprise. I saw over the 
heads of the crowd, first a great sword borne up in the air : 
then a man in a fur cap of the shape of a flower-pot ; then I 
heard the voice shouting the august name — the crowd separated. 
A handsome man with a chain and gown stood before me. It 
was he. He ? What do I say ? It was his Lordship. I 
cared for nothing till dinner-time after that. 


ii. 

The glorious company of banqueteers were now pretty well 
all assembled ; and I, for my part, attracted by an irresistible 
fascination, pushed nearer and nearer my Lord Mayor, and 
surveyed him, as the Generals, Lords, Ambassadors, Judges, 
and other bigwigs rallied round him as their centre, and, being 
introduced to his Lordship and each other, made themselves 
the most solemn and graceful bows ; as if it had been the ob- 
ject of that General’s life to meet that Judge ; and as if that 
Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-wax Office, having achieved 
at length a presentation to the Lord Mayor, had gained the end 
of his existence, and might go home, singing a Nunc dimittis . 
Don Geronimo de Mulligan y Guayaba, Minister of the Repub- 
lic of Topinambo (and originally descended from an illustrious 
Irish ancestor, who hewed out with his pickaxe in the Topi- 
nambo mines the steps by which his family have ascended to 
their present eminence), holding his cocked hat with the yellow 
cockade close over his embroidered coat-tails, conversed with 
Alderman Codshead, that celebrated Statesman, who was also 
in tights, with a sword and bag. 

Of all the articles of the splendid court-dress of our aris- 
tocracy, I think it is those little bags which I admire most. 
The dear crisp curly little black darlings ! They give a gentle- 
man’s back an indescribable grace and air of chivalry. They 
are at once manly, elegant, and useful (being made of sticking- 
plaster, which can be applied afterwards to heal many a wound 
of domestic life). They are something extra appended to men 
to enable them to appear in the presence of royalty. How 
vastly ^he idea of a Court increases in solemnity and grandeur 
when you think that a man cannot enter it without a tail ! 

These thoughts passed through my mind, and pleasingly 
diverted it from all sensations of hunger, while many friends 


SKETCHES AND TEA EELS IN LONDON 


S°4 

around me were pulling out their watches, looking towards the 
great dining-room doors, rattling at the lock, (the door gaped 
open once or twice, and the nose of a functionary on the other 
side peeped in among us and entreated peace,) and vowing it 
was scandalous, monstrous, shameful. If you ask an assembly 
of Englishmen to a feast, and accident or the cook delays it, 
they show their gratitude in this way. Before the supper-rooms 
were thrown open at my friend Mrs. Perkins’s ball, I recollect 
Liversage at the door, swearing and growling as if he had met 
with an injury. So I thought the Bellows-Menders’ guests 
seemed heaving into mutiny, when the great doors burst open 
in a flood of light, and we rushed, a black streaming crowd, 
into the gorgeous hall of banquet. 

Every man sprang for his place with breathless rapidity. 
We knew where those places were beforehand ; for a cunning 
map had been put into the hands of each of us by an officer of 
the Company, where every plate of this grand festival was 
numbered, and each gentleman’s place was ticketed off. My 
wife keeps my card still in her album ; and my dear eldest boy 
(who has a fine genius and appetite) will gaze on it for half an 
hour at a time, whereas he passes by the copies of verses and 
the flower-pieces with an entire indifference. 

The vast hall flames with gas, and is emblazoned all over 
with the arms of by-gone Bellows-Menders. August portraits 
decorate the walls. The Duke of Kent in scarlet, with a 
crooked sabre, stared me firmly in the face during the whole 
entertainment. The Duke of Cumberland, in a hussar uniform, 
was at my back, and I knew was looking down into my plate. 
The eyes of those gaunt' portraits follow you everywhere. The 
Prince Regent has been mentioned before. He has his place 
of honor over the great Bellows-Mender’s chair, and surveys 
the high table glittering with plate, epergnes, candles, hock- 
glasses, moulds of blancmange stuck over with flowers, gold 
statues holding up baskets of barley-sugar, and a thousand ob- 
jects of art. Piles of immense gold cans and salvers rose up 
in buffets behind this high table ; towards which presently, and 
in a grand procession — the band in the gallery overhead blow- 
ing out the Bellows-Menders’ march — a score of City trades- 
men and their famous guests walked solemnly between our rows 
of tables. 

Grace was said, not by the professional devotees who sang 
“ Non Nobis v at the end of the meal, but by a chaplain some- 
where in the room, and the turtle began. Armies of waiters 
came rushing in with tureens of this broth of the City. 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


5°S 


There was a gentleman near us — a very lean old Bellows- 
Mender indeed, who had three platefuls. His old hands trem- 
bled, and his plate quivered with excitement, as he asked again 
and again. That old man is not destined to eat much more of 
the green fat of this life. As he took it he shook all over like 
the jelly in the dish opposite to him. He gasped out a quick 
laugh once or twice to his neighbor, when his two or three old 
tusks showed, still standing up in those jaws which had swal- 
lowed such a deal of calipash. He winked at the waiters, 
knowing them from former banquets. 

This banquet, which I am describing at Christmas, took 
place at the end of May. At that time the vegetables called 
pease were exceedingly scarce, and cost six-and-twenty shillings 
a quart. 

“ There are two hundred quarts of pease,” said the old 
fellow, winking with bloodshot eyes, and a laugh that was "per- 
fectly frightful. They were consumed with the fragrant ducks, 
by those who were inclined : or with the venison, which now 
came in. 

That was a great sight. On a centre table in the hall, on 
which already stood a cold Baron of Beef — a grotesque piece 
of meat — a dish as big as a dish in a pantomime, with a little 
Standard of England stuck into the top of it, as if it were 
round this we were to rally — on this centre table, six men placed 
as many huge dishes under cover ; and at a given signal the 
master cook and five assistants in white caps and jackets 
marched rapidly up to the dish-covers, which being withdrawn, 
discovered to our sight six haunches, on which the six carvers, 
taking out the six sharp knives from their girdles, began oper- 
ating. 

It was, I say, like something out of a Gothic romance, or 
a grotesque fairy pantomime. Feudal barons must have dined 
so five hundred years ago. One of those knives may have 
been the identical blade which Walworth plunged into Wat Ty- 
ler’s ribs, and which was afterwards caught up into the City 
Arms, where it blazes. (Not that any man can seriously be- 
lieve that Wat Tyler was hurt by the dig of the jolly old Mayor 
in the red gown and chain, any more than that pantaloon is 
singed by the great poker, which is always forthcoming at the 
present season.) Here we were practising the noble custom of 
the good old times, imitating our glorious forefathers, rallying 
round our old institutions, like true Britons. These very flagons 
and platters were in the room before us, ten times as big as any 
we use or want nowadays. They served us a grace-cup as 


5 o6 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

large as a plate-basket, and at the end they passed us a rose- 
water dish, into which Pepys might have dipped his napkin. 
Pepys ? — what do I say? Richard III., Coeur-de-Lion, Guy of 
Warwick, Gog and Magog. I don’t know how antique the 
articles are. 

Conversation, rapid and befitting the place and occasion, 
went on all round. “ Waiter, where’s the turtle-fins ? ” — Gob* 
ble, gobble. “ Hice Punch or My deary, sir ? ” “ Smelts 01 

salmon, Jowler my boy ? ” “Always take cold beef after tur- 
tle.” — Hobble-gobble. “These year pease have no taste.” 
Hobble-gobbleobble. “Jones, a glass of ’Ock with you? 
Smith, jine us ? Waiter, three ’Ocks. S., mind your manners ! 
There’s Mrs. S. a-looking at you from the gallery.” — Hobble- 
obbl-gobble-gob-gob-gob. A steam of meats, a flare of candles, 
a rushing to and fro waiters, a ceaseless clinking of glass 
and steel, a dizzy mist of gluttony, out of which I see my old 
friend of the turtle-soup making terrific play among the pease, 
his knife darting down his throat. 

***** 

It is all over. We can eat no more. We are full of Bac- 
chus and fat venison. We lay down our weapons and rest. 
“Why, in the name of goodness,” says I, turning round to 
Pillkington, who had behaved at dinner like a doctor ; 
“ why ? ” 

But a great rap, tap, tap proclaimed grace, after which the 
professional gentlemen sang out, “ Non Nobis,” and then the 
dessert and the speeches began ; about which we shall speak 
in the third course of our entertainment. 


hi. 

On the hammer having ceased its tapping, Mr. Chisel, the 
immortal toast-master, who presided over the President, roared 
out to my three professional friends, “ Non Nobis ; ” and what 
is called “the business of the evening ” commenced. 

First, the Warden of the Worshipful Society of the Bellows- 
Menders proposed *' Her Majesty ” in a reverential voice. We 
all stood up respectfully, Chisel yelling out to us to “ Charge 
our glasses.” The royal health having been imbibed, the pro- 
fessional gentlemen ejaculated a part of the National Anthem ; 
and I dc not mean any disrespect to them personally, in men- 
tioning that this eminently religious hymn was performed by 
Messrs. Shadrach and Meshech, two well-known melodists of 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


5°7 

the Hebrew persuasion. We clinked our glasses at the con- 
clusion of the anthem, making more dents upon the time-worn 
old board, where many a man present had clinked for George 
III., clapped for George IV., rapped for William IV., and was 
rejoiced to bump the bottom of his glass as a token of rever- 
ence for our present Sovereign. 

Here, as in the case of the Hebrew melophonists, I would 
insinuate no wrong thought. Gentlemen, no doubt, have the 
loyal emotions which exhibit themselves by clapping glasses on 
the tables. We do it at home. Let us make no doubt that 
the bellows-menders, tailors, authors, public characters, judges, 
aldermen, ‘sheriffs, and what not, shout out a health for the 
Sovereign every night at their banquets, and that their families 
fill round and drink the same toast from the bottles of half- 
guinea Burgundy. 

“ His Royal Highness Prince Albert, and Albert Prince of 
Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family,” followed, Chisel 
yelling out the august titles, and all of us banging away with 
our glasses, as if we were seriously interested in drinking healths 
to this royal race : as if drinking healths could do anybody any 
good ; as if the imprecations of a company of bellows-menders, 
aldermen, magistrates, tailors, authors, tradesmen, ambassadors, 
who did not care a twopenny-piece for all the royal families in 
Europe, could somehow affect heaven kindly towards their 
Royal Highnesses by their tipsy vows, under the presidence of 
Mr. Chisel. 

The Queen Dowager’s health was next prayed for by us 
Bacchanalians, I need not say with what fervency and efficacy. 
This prayer was no sooner put up by the Chairman, with Chisel 
as his Boanerges of a Clerk, than the elderly Hebrew gentle- 
men before mentioned began striking up a wild patriotic ditty 
about the “ Queen of the Isles, on whose sea-girt shores the 
bright sun smiles, and the ocean roars : whose cliffs never knew, 
since the bright sun rose, but a people true, who scorned all 
foes. Oh, a people true, who scorn all wiles, inhabit you, bright 
Queen of the Isles. Bright Quee — Bright Quee — ee — ee— ee 
— ee — en awf the Isles ! ” or words to that effect, which Shad- 
rach took up and warbled across his glass to Meshech, which 
Meshech trolled away to his brother singer, until the ditty was 
ended, nobody understanding a word of what it meant ; not 
Oldboy-^-not the old or young Israelite minstrel his companion 
—not we, who were clinking our glasses— not Chisel, who was 
urging us and the Chairman on — not the Chairman and the 
guests in embroidery — not the kind, exalted, and amiable lady 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


5°S 

whose health we were making believe to drink, certainly, and 
in order to render whose name welcome to the Powers to whom 
we recommended her safety, we offered up, through the mouths 
of three singers, hired for the purpose, a perfectly insane and 
irrelevant song. 

“ Why,” says I to Pillkington, “ the Chairman and the grand 
guests might just as well get up and dance round the table, or 
out off Chisel’s head and pop it into a turtle-soup tureen, or go 
through any other mad ceremony as the last. Which of us 
'here cares for her Majesty the Queen Dowager, any more than 
for a virtuous and eminent lady, whose goodness and private 
worth appear in all her acts ? What the deuce has that absurd 
song about the Queen of the Isles to do with her Majesty, and 
how does it set us all stamping with our glasses on the mahog- 
any ? ” Chisel bellowed out another toast — “ The Army;” 
and we were silent in admiration, while Sir George Bluff, the 
greatest General present, rose to return thanks. 

Our end of the table was far removed from the thick of the 
affair, and we only heard, as it were, the indistinct cannonading 
of the General, whose force had just advanced into action. 
We saw an old gentleman with white whiskers, and a flaring 
scarlet coat covered with stars and gilding, rise up with a 
frightened and desperate look, and declare that “this was the 
proudest— a-hem — moment of his — a-hem — unworthy as he was 
— a-hem — -as a member of the British — a-hem — who had fought 
under the illustrious Duke of — a-hem — his joy was to come 
among the Bellows-Menders — a-hem — and inform the great mer- 
chants of the greatest City of the— hum — that a British — a-hem 
— was always ready to do his — hum. Napoleon — Salamanca — 
a-hem — had witnessed their — hum, haw — and should any other 
— hum — ho — casion which he deeply deprecated — haw — there 
were men now around him — a-haw — who, inspired by the Bel- 
lows-Menders’ Company and the City of London — a-hum — - 
would do their duty as — a-hum — a-haw — a-hah.” Immense 
cheers, yells, hurrays, roars, glass-smackings, and applause fob 
lowed this harangue, at the end of which the three Israelites, 
encouraged by Chisel, began a military cantata — “ Oh, the 
sword and shield — on the battle-field — Are the joys that best we 
love, boys — Where the Grenadiers, with their pikes and spears, 
through the ranks of the foemen shove, boys — Where the bold 
hurray, strikes dread dismay, in the ranks of the dead and dyin* 
- — and the bayonet clanks in the Frenchman’s ranks, as they 
fly from the British Lion,” (I repeat, as before, that I quote 
from memory.) 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


5°9 


Then the Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office 
rose to return thanks for the blessings which we begged upon 
the Ministry. He was, he said, but a humble — the humblest 
member of that body. The suffrages which that body had re- 
ceived from the nation were gratifying, but the most gratifying 
testimonial of all was the approval of the Bellows-Menders’ 
Company. (. Immense applause .) Yes, among the most enlight- 
ened of the mighty corporations of the City, the most enlight- 
ened was the Bellows-Menders’. Yes, he might say, in conso- 
nance with their motto, and in defiance of illiberality, Afflavit 
veritas et dissipati sunt. ( Enormous applausel) Yes, the thanks 
and pride that were boiling with emotion in his bosom, trembled 
to find utterance at his lip. Yes, the proudest moment of his 
life, the crown of his ambition, the meed of his early hopes and 
struggles and aspirations, was at that moment won in the ap- 
probation of the Bellows-Menders. Yes, his children should 
know that he too had attended at those great, those noble, those 
joyous, those ancient festivals, and that he too, the humble in- 
dividual who from his heart pledged the assembled company in 
a bumper — that he too was a Bellows-Mender. 

Shadrach, Meshech, and Oldboy, at this began singing, I 
don’t know for what reason, a rustic madrigal, describing, 
“ Oh, the joys of bonny May — bonny May— a- a- ay, when the 
birds sing on the spray,” &c., which never, as I could see, 
had the least relation to that or any other Ministry, but which 
was, nevertheless, applauded by all present. And then the 
Judges returned thanks ; and the Clergy returned thanks ; 
and the Foreign Ministers had an innings (all interspersed by 
my friends’ indefatigable melodies) ; and the distinguished for- 
eigners present, especially Mr. Washington Jackson, were 
greeted, and that distinguished American rose amidst thunders 
of applause. 

He explained how Broadway and Cornhill were in fact the 
same. He showed how Washington was in fact an Englishman, 
and how Franklin would never have been an American but for 
his education as a printer in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He de- 
clared that Milton was his cousin, Locke his ancestor, Newton 
his dearest friend, Shakespeare his grandfather, or more or 
less — he vowed that he had wept tears of briny anguish on the 
pedestal of Charing Cross — kissed with honest fervor the clay 
of Runnymede — that Ben Jonson and Samuel — that Pope and 
Dryden, and Dr. Watts and Swift were the darlings of his 
hearth and home, as of ours, and in a speech of about five-and- 
thirty minutes, explained to us a series of complimentary sem 
nations very hard to repeat or to remember. 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


5 ro 

But I observed that, during his oration, the gentlemen who 
report for the daily papers were occupied with their wine in- 
stead of their note-books — that the three singers of Israel 
yawned and showed many signs of disquiet and inebriety, and 
that my old friend, who had swallowed the three plates of 
turtle, was sound asleep. 

Pillkington and I quitted the banqueting-hall, and went into 
the tea-room, where gents were assembled still, drinking slops 
and eating buttered muffins, until the grease trickled down their 
faces. Then I resumed the query which I was just about to 
put, when grace was called, and the last chapter ended. “ And, 
gracious goodness ! ” I said, “ what can be the meaning of a 
ceremony so costly, so uncomfortable, so savory, so unwhole- 
some as this ? Who is called upon to pay two or three guineas 
for my dinner now, in this blessed year 1847 ? Who is it that 
can want muffins after such a banquet? Are there no poor ? 
Is there no reason ? Is this monstrous belly-worship to exist 
forever ? ” 

“ Spec,” the Doctor said, “ you had best come away. I 
make no doubt that you for one have had too much.” And we 
went to his brougham. May nobody have such a headache on 
this happy New Year as befell the present writer on the morn- 
ing after the Dinner in the City! 


WAITING AT THE STATION. 

We are amongst a number of people waiting for the Black- 
wall train at the Fenchurch Street Station. Some of us are 
going a little farther than Blackwall — as far as Gravesend ; 
some of us are going even farther than Gravesend — to Port 
Philip, in Australia, leaving behind the patrice fines and the 
pleasant fields of Old England. It is rather a queer sensation 
to be in the same boat and station with a party that is going 
upon so prodigious a journey. One speculates about them 
with more than an ordinary interest, thinking of the difference 
between your fate and theirs, and that we shall never behold 
these faces again. 

Some eight-and-thirty women are sitting in the large Hall 
of the station, with bundles, baskets, and light baggage, wait- 
ing for the steamer, and the orders to embark. A few friends 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS JN LONDON. 


5 ** 

are taking leave of them, bonnets are laid together, and whis- 
pering going on. A little crying is taking place — only a very 
little crying, — and among those who remain, as it seems to me, 
not those who are going away. They leave behind them little 
to weep for ; they are going from bitter cold and hunger, con- 
stant want and unavailing labor. Why should they be sorry to 
quit a mother w r ho has been so hard to them as our country 
has been ? How many of these women will ever see the shore 
again, upon the brink of which they stand, and from which they 
will depart in a few minutes more ? It makes one sad and 
ashamed too, that they should not be more sorry. But how 
are you to expect love where you have given such scanty kind- 
ness ? If you saw your children glad at the thoughts of leav- 
ing you, and forever : would you blame yourself or them ? It 
is nofthat the children are ungrateful, but the home was un- 
happy, and the parents indifferent or unkind. You are in the 
wrong, under whose government they only had neglect and 
wretchedness ; not they, who can’t be called upon to love such 
an unlovely thing as misery, or to make any other return for 
neglect but indifference and aversion. 

You and I, let us suppose again, are civilized persons. 
We have been decently educated : and live decently every day, 
and wear tolerable clothes, and practise cleanliness : and love 
the arts and graces of life. As we walk down this rank of 
eight-and-thirty female emigrants, let us fancy that we are at 
Melbourne, and not in London, and that we have come down 
from our sheep-walks, or clearings, having heard of the arrival 
of forty honest, well-recommended young women, and having a 
natural longing to take a wife home to the bush — which of 
these would you like ? If you were an Australian Sultan, to 
which of these would you throw the handkerchief ? I am 
afraid not one of them. I fear, in our present mood of mind, 
we should mount horse and return to the country, preferring a 
solitude, and to be a bachelor, than to put up with one of these 
for a companion. There is no girl here to tempt you by her 
looks : (and, world-wiseacre as you are, it is by these you are 
principally moved) — there is no pretty, modest, red-cheeked 
rustic, — no neat, trim little grisette, such as what we call a gen- 
tleman might cast his eyes upon without too much derogating, 
and might find favor in the eyes of a man about town. No ; 
it is a homely bevy of women with scarcely any beauty amongst 
them — their clothes are decent, but not the least picturesque — 
their faces are pale and careworn for the most part — how, in- 
deed, should it be otherwise seeing that they have known care 


5 12 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


and want all their days? — there they sit, upon bare benches, 
with dingy bundles, and great cotton umbrellas — and the truth 
is, you are not a hardy colonist, a feeder of sheep, feller of 
trees, a hunter of kangaroos— but a London man, and my lord 
the Sultan’s cambric handkerchief is scented with Bond Street 
perfumery — you put it in your pocket, and couldn’t give it to 
any one of these women. 

They are not like you, indeed. They have not your tastes 
and feelings : your education and refinements. They would 
not understand a hundred things which seem perfectly simple 
to you. They would shock you a hundred times a day by as 
many deficiencies of politeness, or . by outrages upon the 
Queen’s English — by practices entirely harmless, and yet in 
your eyes actually worse than crimes — they have large hard 
hands and clumsy feet. The woman you love must have pretty 
soft fingers that you may hold in yours : must speak her lan- 
guage properly, and ac least when you offer her your heart, must 
return hers with its h in the right place, as she whispers that it 
is yours, or you will have none of it. If she says, “ O Hed- 
ward, I ham so unhappy to think I shall never beold you agin,” 
— though her emotion on leaving you might be perfectly tender 
and genuine, you would be obliged to laugh. If she said, 
“ Hedward, my art is yours for hever and hever ” (and anybody 
heard her), she might as well stab you, — you couldn’t accept 
the most faithful affection offered in such terms — you are a 
town-bred man, I say, and your handkerchief smells of Bond 
Street musk and millefleur. A sunburnt settler out of the 
Bush won’t feel any of these exquisite tortures : or understand 
this kind of laughter : or object to Molly because her hands 
are coarse and her ankles thick : but he will take her back to 
his farm, where she will nurse his children, bake his dough, 
milk his cows, and cook his kangaroo for him. 

But between you, an educated Londoner, and that woman, 
is not the union absurd and impossible ? Would it not be un- 
bearable for either ? Solitude would be incomparably pleas- 
anter than such a companion. — You might take her with a 
handsome fortune, perhaps, were you starving ; but then it is 
because you want a house and carriage, let us say ( your neces- 
saries of life), and must have them even if you purchase them 
with your precious person. You do as much, or your sister 
does as much, every day. That, however, is not the point : I 
am not talking about the meanness to which your worship may 
be possibly obliged to stoop, in order, as you say, “ to keep up 
your rank in society ” — only stating that this immense social 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


5*3 


difference does exist. You don’t like to own it : or don’t 
choose to talk about it, and such things had much better not 
be spoken about at all. I hear your worship say, there must 
be difference in rank and so forth ! Well ! out with it at once : 
you don’t think Molly is your equal — nor indeed is she in the 
possession of many artificial acquirements. She can’t make 
Latin verses, for example, as you used to do at school ; she 
can’t speak French and Italian, as your wife very likely can, 
&c.— and in so far she is your inferior, and your amiable 
lady’s. 

But what I note, what I marvel at, what I acknowledge, 
what I am ashamed of, what is contrary to Christian morals, 
manly modesty and honesty, and to the national well-being, is 
that there should be that immense social distinction between 
the well-dressed classes (as, if you will permit me, we will call 
ourselves,) and our brethren and sisters in the fustian jackets 
and pattens. If you deny it for your part, I say that you are 
mistaken, and deceive yourself wofully. I say that you have 
been educated to it through Gothic ages, and have had it 
handed down to you from your fathers (not that they were any- 
body in particular, but respectable, well-dressed progenitors, 
let us say for a generation or two) — from your well-dressed 
fathers before you. How long ago is it, that our preachers 
were teaching the poor “ to know their station ? ” that it was 
the peculiar boast of Englishmen, that any man, the humblest 
among us, could, by talent, industry, and good luck, hope to 
take his place in the aristocracy of his country, and that we 
pointed with pride to Lord This, who was the grandson of a 
barber; and to Earl That, whose father was an apothecary? 
What a multitude of most respectable folks pride themselves 
on these things still ! The gulf is not impassable, because one 
man in a million swims over it, and we hail him for his 
strength and success. He has landed on the happy island. 
He is one of the aristocracy. Let us clap hands and applaud. 
There’s no country like ours for rational freedom. 

If you go up and speak td one of these women, as you do, 
(and very good-naturedly, and you can’t help that confounded 
condescension,) she curtseys and holds down her head meekly, 
and replies with modesty, as becomes her station, to your honor 
with the clean shirt and the well-made coat. “ And so she 
should,” what hundreds of thousands of us rich and poor say 
still. Both believe this to be bounden duty ; and that a poor 
person should naturally bob her head to a rich one physically 
and morally. 


33 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


5*4 

Let us get her last curtsey from her as she stands here upon 
the English shore. When she gets into the Australian woods 
her hack won’t bend except to her labor ; or, if it do, from old 
habit and the reminiscence of the old country, do you suppose 
her children will be like that timid creature before you ? They 
will know nothing of that Gothic society, with its ranks and 
hierarchies, its cumbrous ceremonies, its glittering antique para- 
phernalia, in which we have been educated ; in which rich and 
poor still acquiesce, and which multitudes of both still admire : 
far removed from these old-world traditions, they will be bred 
up in the midst of plenty, freedom, manly brotherhood. Do 
you think if your worship’s grandson goes into the Australian 
woods, or meets the grandchild of one of yonder women by the 
banks of the Warrawarra, the Australian will take a hat off or 
bob a curtsey to the new-comer ? He will hold out his hand, 
and say, “ Stranger, come into my house and take a shake-down 
and have a share of our supper. You come out of the old 
country, do you ? There was some people were kind to my 
grandmother there, and sent her out to Melbourne. Times are 
changed since then — come in and welcome ! ” 

What a confession it is that we have almost all of us been 
obliged to make ! A clever and earnest-minded writer gets a 
commission from the Morning Chronicle newspaper, and reports 
upon the state of our poor in London ; he goes amongst labor- 
ing people and poor of all kinds — and brings back what ? A 
picture of human life so wonderful, so awful, so piteous and 
pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that readers of romances own 
they never read anything like to it ; and that the griefs, strug- 
gles, strange adventures here depicted, exceed anything that 
any of us could imagine. Yes; and these wonders and terrors 
have been lying by your door and mine ever since we had a 
door of our own. We had but to go a hundred yards off and 
see for ourselves, but we never did. Don’t w r e pay poor-rates, 
and are they not heavy enough in the name of patience ? Very 
true ; and we have our own private pensioners, and give away 
some of our superfluity, very likely. You are not unkind ; not 
ungenerous. But of such wondrous and complicated misery as 
this you confess you had no idea. No. How should you ? — * 
you and I — we are of the upper classes ; we have had hitherto 
no community with the poor. We never speak a word to the 
servant who waits on us for twenty years ; we condescend to 
employ a tradesman, keeping him at a proper distance, mind, of 
course, at a proper distance — we laugh at his young men, if 
they dance, jig, and amuse themselves like their betters, and 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


5 t S 

call them counter-jumpers, snobs, and what not ? of his work- 
men we know nothing, how pitilessly they are ground down, how 
they live and die, here close by us at the •backs of our houses ; 
until some poet like Hood wakes and sings that dreadful 
“ Song of the Shirt ; ” some prophet like Carlyle rises up and de- 
nounces woe ; some clear-sighted, energeiic man like the writer 
of the Chro?iicle travels into the poor man’s country for us, and 
comes back with his tale of terror and. wonder. 

Awful, awful poor man’s country 1 The bell rings, and these 
eight-and-thirty women bid adieu to it, rescued from it (as a few 
thousands more will be) by some kind people who are interested 
in their behalf. In two hours more, the steamer lies alongside 
the ship Culloden , which will bear them to their new home. Here 
are the berths aft for the unmarried women, the married couples 
are in the midships, the bachelors in the fore-part of the ship. 
Above and below decks it swarms and echoes with the bustle of 
departure. The Emigration Commissioner comes and calls 
over their names ; there are old and young, large families, num- 
bers of children already accustomed to the ship, and looking 
about with amused unconsciousness. One was born but just 
now on board ; he will not know how to speak English till he is 
fifteen thousand miles away from home. Some of these kind peo- 
ple whose bounty and benevolence organized the Female Emi- 
gration Scheme, are here to give a last word and shake of the 
hand to their protegees. They hang sadly and gratefully round 
their patrons. One of them, a clergyman, who has devoted 
himself to this good work, says a few words to them at parting. 
It is a solemn minute indeed— for those who (with the few thou- 
sand who will follow them) are leaving the country and escap- 
ing from the question between rich and poor ; and what for 
those who remain ? But, at least, those who go will remember 
that in their misery here they found gentle hearts to love and 
pity them, and generous hands to give them succor, and will 
plant in the new country this grateful tradition of the old. — • 
May heaven’s good mercy speed them ! 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


5*6 


A NIGHTS PLEASURE . 


i. 

Having made a solemn engagement during the last Mid- 
summer holidays with my young friend Augustus Jones, that 
we should go to a Christmas Pantomime together, and being 
accommodated by the obliging proprietors of Covent Garden 
Theatre with a private box for last Tuesday, I invited not only 
him, but some other young friends to be present at the enter- 
tainment. The two Miss Twiggs, the charming daughters of 
the Rev. Mr. Twigg, our neighbor ; Miss Minny Twigg, their 
youngest sister, eight years of age ; and their maternal aunt, 
Mrs. Captain Flather, as the chaperon of the young ladies, 
were the four other partakers of this amusement with myself 
and Mr. Jones. 

It was agreed that the ladies, who live in Montpellier 
Square, Brompton, should take up myself and Master Augustus 
at the “ Sarcophagus Club,” which is on the way to the theatre, 
and where we two gentlemen dined on the day appointed. 
Cox’s most roomy fly, the mouldy green one, in which he insists 
on putting the roaring gray horse, was engaged for the happy 
evening. Only an intoxicated driver (as Cox’s man always is) 
could ever, I am sure, get that animal into a trot. But the 
utmost fury of the whip will not drive him into a dangerous 
pace ; and besides, the ladies were protected by Thomas, Mrs. 
Flather’s page, a young man with a gold band to his hat, and 
a large gilt knob on the top r who insured the safety of the cargo, 
and really gave the vehicle the dignity of one’s own carriage. 

The dinner-hour at the “ Sarcophagus ” being appointed for 
five o’clock, and a table secured in the strangers’ room, Master 
Jones was good enough to arrive (under the guardianship of 
the Colonel’s footman) about half an hour before the appointed 
time, and the interval was by him partly passed in conversation, 
but chiefly in looking at a large silver watch which he possesses, 
and in hoping that we shouldn’t be late. 

I made every attempt to pacify and amuse my young guest, 
whose anxiety was not about the dinner but about the play. 
I tried him with a few questions about Greek and Mathematics 
— a sort of talk, however, which I was obliged speedily to 
abandon, for I found he knew a great deal more upon these 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


5*7 

subjects than I did — (it is disgusting how pretematurally 
learned the boys of our day are, by the way). I engaged him 
to relate anecdotes about his school-fellows and ushers, which 
he did, but still in a hurried, agitated, nervous manner — evi- 
dently thinking about that sole absorbing subject, the pan- 
tomime. 

A neat little dinner, served in BotiboPs best manner (our 
chef at the “ Sarcophagus ” knows when he has to deal with a 
connoisseur, and would as soon serve me up his own ears as a 
rechauffe dish), made scarcely any impression on young Jones.. 
After a couple of spoonfuls, he pushed away the Palestine soup, , 
and took out his large silver watch — he applied two or three 
times to the chronometer during the fish period — and it was not 
until I had him employed upon an omelette, full of apricot jam,, 
that the young gentleman was decently tranquil. 

With the last mouthful of the omelette he began to fidget 
again ; and it still wanted a quarter of an hour of six. Nuts, 
almonds and raisins, figs (the almost never-failing soother of 
youth), I hoped might keep him quiet, and laid before him all 
those delicacies. But he beat the devil’s tattoo with the nut- 
crackers, had out the watch time after time, declared that it 
stopped, and made such a ceaseless kicking on the legs of his 
chair, that there were moments when I wished he was back in 
the parlor of Mrs. Jones, his mamma. 

I know oldsters who have a savage pleasure in making boys 
drunk — a horrid thought of this kind may, perhaps, have crossed 
my mind. “ If I could get him to drink half a dozen glasses of 
that heavy port, it might soothe him and make him sleep/’ I 
may have thought. But he would only take a couple of glasses 
of wine. He said he didn’t like more ; that his father did not 
wish him to take more : and abashed by his frank and honest 
demeanor, I would not press him, of course, a single moment 
further, and so was forced to take the bottle to myself, to soothe 
me instead of my young guest. 

He was almost frantic at a quarter to seven, by which time 
the ladies had agreed to call for us, and for about five minutes 
was perfectly dangerous, “ We shall be late, I know we shall ; 
I said we should ! I am sure it’s seven, past, and that the box 
will be taken ! ” and countless other exclamations of fear and 
impatience passed through his mind. At length we heard a 
carriage stop, and a Club servant entering and directing himself 
towards our table. Young Jones did not want to hear him 
speak, but cried out, — “ Hooray, here they are ! ” flung his 
napkin over his head, dashed off his chair, sprang at his hat 


5 18 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

like a kitten at a ball, and bounced out of the door, crying out, 
“ Come along, Mr. Spec ! ” whilst the individual addressed 
much more deliberately followed. “ Happy Augustus ! I 
mentally exclaimed. “ O thou brisk and bounding votary of 
pleasure ! When the virile toga has taken the place of the 
jacket and turned-down collar, that Columbine, who will float 
before you a goddess to-night, will only be a third-rate dancing 
female, with rouge and large feet. You will see the ropes by 
which the genii come down, and the dirty crumpled knees of 
the fairies — and you won’t be in such a hurry to leave a good 
bottle of port as now at the pleasant age of thirteen.” — [By the 
way, boys are made so abominably comfortable and odiously 
happy, nowadays, that when I look back to 1802, and my own 
youth, I get in a rage with the whole race of boys, and feel in- 
clined to flog them all round.] Paying the bill, I say, and 
making these leisurely observations, I passed under the hall of 
the “Sarcophagus,” where Thomas, the page, touched the gold- 
knobbed hat respectfully to me, in a manner which I think 
must have rather surprised old General Growler, who was un- 
rolling himself of his muffetees and wrappers, and issued into 
the street, where Cox’s fly was in waiting : the windows up, and 
whitened with a slight frost : the silhouettes of the dear beings 
within dimly visible against the chemist’s light opposite the 
Club ; and Master Augustus already kicking his heels on the 
box, by the side of the inebriated driver. 

I caused the youth to descend from that perch, and the 
door of the fly being opened, thrust him in. Mrs. Captain 
Flather, of course, occupied the place of honor — an uncom- 
monly capacious woman, — and one of the young ladies made a 
retreat from the front seat, in order to leave it vacant for my- 
self ; but I insisted on not incommoding Mrs. Captain F., and 
that the two darling children should sit beside her, while I 
occupied the place of back bodkin between the two Miss 
Twiggs. 

They were attired in white, covered up with shawls, with 
bouquets in their laps, and their hair dressed evidently for the 
occasion ; Mrs. Flather in her red velvet of course, with her 
large gilt state turban. 

She saw that we were squeezed on our side of the carriage, 
and made an offer to receive me on hers. 

Squeezed? I should think we were; but, O Emily, O 
Louisa, you mischievous little black-eyed creatures, who would 
dislike being squeezed by you ? I wished it was to York we 
were going, and not to Covent Garden. How swiftly the 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


5 T 9 


moments passed. We were at the play-house in no time : and 
Augustus plunged instantly out of the fly over the shins of 
everybody. 


n. 

We took possession of the private box assigned to us : and 
Mrs. Flather seated herself in the place of honor — each of the 
young ladies taking it by turns to occupy the other corner. 
'Miss Minny and Master Jones occupied the middle places ; 
and it was pleasant to watch the young gentleman throughout 
the performance of the comedy — during which he was never 
quiet for two minutes— now shifting his chair, now swinging to 
and fro upon it, now digging his elbows into the capacious 
sides of Mrs. Captain Flather, now beating with his boots 
against the front of the box, or trampling upon the skirts of 
Mrs. Flather’s satin garment. 

He occupied himself unceasingly, too, in working up and 
down Mrs. F.’s double-barrelled French opera-glass — not a little 
to the detriment of that instrument and the wrath of the owner ; 
indeed I have no doubt, that had not Mrs. Flather reflected 
that Mrs. Colonel Jones gave some of the most elegant parties 
in London, to which she was very anxious to be invited, she 
would have boxed Master Augustus’s ears in the presence of 
the whole audience of Covent Garden. 

One of the young ladies was, of course, obliged to remain 
in the back row with Mr. Spec. We could not see much of the 
play over Mrs. F.’s turban ; but I trust that we were not un- 
happy in our retired position. O Miss Emily ! O Miss 
Louisa ! there is one who would be happy to sit for a week 
close by either of you, though it were on one of those abom- 
inable little private-box chairs. I know, for my part, that every 
time the box-keeperess popped in her head, and asked if we 
would take any refreshment, I thought the interruption odious. 

Our young ladies, and their stout chaperon and aunt, had 
come provided with neat little bouquets of flowers, in which 
they evidently took a considerable pride, and which were laid, 
on their first entrance, on the ledge in front of our box. 

But, presently, on the opposite side of the house, Mrs. Cut- 
bush, of Pocklington Gardens, appeared with her daughters, 
and bowed in a patronizing manner to the ladies of our party, 
with whom the Cutbush family had a slight acquaintance. 

Before ten minutes, the bouquets of our party were whisked 


5 2 ° 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


a^vay from the ledge of the box. Mrs. Flathcr dropped hers to 
the ground, where Master Jones’s feet speedily finished it; 
Miss Louisa Twigg let hers fall into her lap, and covered it with 
her pocket-handkerchief. Uneasy signals passed between her 
and her sister. I could not, at first, understand what event had 
occurred to make these ladies so. unhappy, 

At last the secret came out. The Misses Cutbush had 
bouquets like little haystacks before them. Our small nose- 
gays, which had quite satisfied the girls until now, had become 
odious in their little jealous eyes ; and the Cutbushes triumphed 
over them. 

I have joked the ladies subsequently on this adventure ; but 
not one of them will acknowledge the charge against them. It 
was mere accident that made them drop the flowers — pure 
accident. They jealous of the Cutbushes — not they, indeed ; 
and of course, each person on this head is welcome to his own 
opinion. 

How different, meanwhile, was the behavior of my young 
friend Master Jones, who is not as yet sophisticated by the 
world. He not only nodded to his father’s servant, who had 
taken a place in the pit, and was to escort his young master 
home, but he discovered a school-fellow in the pit likewise. 
“By Jove, there’s Smith!” he cried out, as if the sight of 
Smith was the most extraordinary event in the world. He 
pointed out Smith to all of us. He never ceased nodding, 
winking, grinning, telegraphing, until he had succeeded in at- 
tracting the attention not only of Master Smith, but of the 
greater part of the house ; and whenever anything in the play 
struck him as worthy of applause, he instantly made signals to 
Smith below, and shook his fist at him, as much as to say, “ By 
Jove, old fellow, ain’t it good ? I say, Smith, isn’t it prime , old 
boy ? ” He actually made remarks on his fingers to Master 
Smith during the performance. 

I confess he was one of the best parts of the night’s enter- 
tainment, to me. How Jones and Smith will talk about that 
play when they meet after holidays ! And not only then will 
they remember it, but all their lives long. Why do you remem- 
ber that play you saw thirty years ago, and forget the one over 
which you yawned last week ? “ Ah, my brave little boy,” I 

thought in my heart, “ twenty years hence you will recollect 
this, and have forgotten many a better thing. You will have 
been in love twice or thrice by that time, and have forgotten it ; 
you will have buried your wife and forgotten her ; you will have 
had ever so many friendships and forgotten them. You and 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. 


521 


Smith won’t care for each other, very probably ; but you’ll re* 
member all the actors and the plot of this piece we are seeing. 

I protest I have forgotten it myself. In our back row we 
could not see or hear much of the performance (and no great 
loss) — fitful bursts of elocution only occasionally reaching us, 
in which we could recognize the well-known nasal twang of the 
excellent Mr. Stupor, who performed the part of the young 
hero; or the ringing laughter of Mrs. Belmore, who had to 
giggle through the whole piece. 

It was one of Mr. Boyster’s comedies of English Life. 
Frank Nightrake (Stupor) and his friend Bob Fitzoffley ap- 
peared in the first scene, having a conversation with that im- 
possible valet of English Comedy, whom any gentleman would 
turn out of doors before he could get through half a length of 
the dialogue assigned. I caught only a glimpse of this act. 
Bob, like a fashionable young dog of the aristocracy (the char- 
acter was played by Bulger, a meritorious man, but very stout, 
and nearly fifty years of age), was dressed in a rhubarb-colored 
body-coat with brass buttons, a couple of under-waistcoats, a 
blue satin stock with a paste brooch in it, and an eighteenpenny 
cane, which he never let out of his hand, and with which he 
poked fun at everybody. Frank Nightrake, on the contrary, 
being at home, was attired in a very close-fitting chintz dressing- 
gown, lined with glazed red calico, and was seated before a 
large pewter teapot, at breakfast. And, as your true English 
Comedy is the representation of nature, I could not but think 
how like these figures on the stage, and the dialogue which they 
used, were to the appearance and talk of English gentlemen of 
the present day. 

The dialogue went on somewhat in the following fashion : — 

Bob Fitzoffley ( enters whistling). — “ The top of the morning 
to thee, Frank! What! at breakfast already? At chocolate 
and the Morning Post , like a dowager of sixty ? Slang ! (he 
pokes the servant with his cane ) what has come to thy master, 
thou Prince of Valets ! thou pattern of Slaveys ! thou swiftest 
of Mercuries ! Has the Honorable Francis Nightrake lost his 
heart, or his head, or his health ? ” 

Frank (laying down his paper). — “ Bob, Bob, I have lost all 
three ! I have lost my health, Bob, with thee and thy like, 
over the Burgundy at the club ; and I have lost my head, Bob, 
with thinking how I shall pay my debts ; and I have lost my 
heart, Bob, oh, to such a creature ! ” 

Frank “ A Venus, of course ? ” 


522 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


Slang. — “With the presence of Juno.” 

Bob. — And the modesty of Minerva.” 

Frank. — “ And the coldness of Diana.” 

Bob. — “ Pish ! What a sigh is that about a woman ! Thou 
shalt be Endymion, the nightrake of old : and conquer this 
shy goddess. Hey, Slang ? ” 

Herewith Slang takes the lead of the conversation, and pro- 
pounds a plot for running away with the heiress : and I could 
not help remarking how like the comedy was to life — how the 
gentlemen always say “thou,” and prythee,” and “go to,” and 
talk about heathen goddesses to each other ; how their ser- 
vants are always their particular intimates ; how when there is 
serious love-making between a gentleman and lady, a comic 
attachment invariably springs up between the valet and wait- 
ing-maid of each ; how Lady Grace Gadabout, when she calls 
upon Rose Ringdove to pay a morning visit, appears in a low 
satin dress, with jewels in her hair ; how Saucebox, her attend- 
ant, wears diamond brooches and rings on all her lingers : 
while Mrs. Tallyho, on the other hand, transacts all the busi- 
ness of life in a riding-habit, and always points her jokes by a 
cut of the whip. 

This playfulness produced a roar all over the house, when- 
ever it was repeated, and always made our little friends clap 
their hands and shout in chorus. 

Like that bon-vivant who envied the beggars staring into 
the cook-shop windows, and wished he could be hungry, I 
envied the boys, and wished I could laugh, very much. In the 
last act I remember — for it is very nearly a week ago — every- 
body took refuge either in a secret door, or behind a screen or 
curtain, or under a table or up a chimney : and the house 
roared as each person came out from his place of concealment. 
And the old fellow in top-boots, joining the hands of the young 
couple (Fitzoffiey, of course, pairing off with the widow), gave 
them his blessing, and thirty thousand pounds. 

And ah, ye gods ! if I wished before that comedies were 
like life, how I wished that life was like comedies ! Where- 
on the drop fell ; and Augustus, clapping to the opera-glass, 
jumped up, crying — “ Hooray ! now for the Pantomime.” 


hi. 

The composer of the Overture of the New Grand Comic 
Christmas Pantomime, Harlequin and the Fairy of the Spangled 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. 


5 2 3 


Pocket-handkerchief, or the Prince of the Enchanted Nose , arrayed 
in a bran-new Christmas suit, with his wristbands and collar 
turned elegantly over his cuffs and embroidered satin tile, takes 
a place at his desk, waves his stick, and away the Pantomime 
Overture begins. 

I pity a man who can’t appreciate a Pantomime Overture. 
Children do not like it : they say, “ Hang it, 1 wish the Pan- 
tomime would begin : ” but for us it is always a pleasant mo- 
ment for reflection and enjoyment. It is not difficult music to 
understand, HI e that of your Mendelssohns and Beethovens, 
whose symphonies and sonatas Mrs. Spec states must be heard 
a score of times before you can comprehend them. But of the 
proper Pantomime-music I am a delighted connoisseur. Per- 
haps it is because you meet so many old friends in these com- 
positions consorting together in the queerest manner, and 
occasioning numberless pleasant surprises. Hark ! there goes 
“ Old Dan Tucker ” wandering into the “ G?'Oves of Blarney 
our friends the “ Scots wha hae wV Wallace bled ” marching 
rapidly down “ Wapping Old Stairs ,” from which the “ Figlia 
del Reggimento ” comes bounding briskly, when she is met, em- 
braced, and carried off by “ Billy Taylor ,” that brisk young 
fellow. 

All this while you are thinking with a faint, sickly kind of 
hope, that perhaps the Pantomime may be a good one ; some- 
thing like Harlequin and the Golden Orange-Tree , which you 
recollect in your youth ; something like Fortunio , that mar- 
vellous and delightful piece of buffoonery, which realized the 
most gorgeous visions of the absurd. You may be happy, 
perchance : a glimpse of the old days may come back to you. 
Lives there the man with soul so dead, the being ever so blase 
and travel-worn, who does not feel some shock and thrill still : 
just at that moment when the bell (the dear and familiar bell 
of your youth) begins to tingle, and the curtain to rise, „ and the 
large shoes and ankles, the flesh-colored leggings, the crum- 
pled knees, the gorgeous robes and masks finally, of the actors 
ranged on the stage to shout the opening chorus ? 

All round the house you hear a great gasping a-ha-a from a 
thousand children’s throats. Enjoyment is going to give place 
to Hope. Desire is about to be realized. O you blind little 
brats ! Clap your hands, and crane over the boxes, and open 
your eyes with happy wonder ! Clap your hands now. In three 
weeks more the Reverend Doctor Swish tail expects the return 
of his young friends to Sugarcane House. 


* 


5 24 SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 

King Beak , Emperor of the Romans, having invited all the 
neighboring Princes, Fairies, and Enchanters to the feast at 
which he celebrated the marriage of his only son, Prince Aqui- 
line , unluckily gave the liver- wing of the fowl which he was 
carving to the Prince’s godmother, the Fairy Bandanna, while 
he put the gizzard-pinion on the plate of the Enchanter Gor - 
gibus , King of the Maraschino Mountains, and father of the 
Princess Rosolia , to whom the Prince was affianced. 

The outraged Gorgibus rose from the table in a fury, 
smashed his plate of chicken over the head of King Beak's 
Chamberlain, and wished that Prince Aquiline's nose might 
grow on the instant as long as the sausage before him. 

It did so; the screaming Princess rushed away from her bride- 
groom, and her father, breaking off the match with the house of 
Beak , ordered his daughter to be carried in his sedan by the 
two giant-porters, Gor and Gogstay , to his castle in the Juniper 
Forest, by the side of the bitter waters of the Absinthine Lake, 
whither, after upsetting the marriage-tables, and flooring King 
Beak in a single combat, he himself repaired. 

The latter monarch could not bear to see or even to hear 
his disfigured son. 

When the Pri?ice Aquiline blew his unfortunate and mon- 
strous nose, the windows of his father’s palace broke ; the locks 
of the doors started ; the dishes and glasses of the King’s ban- 
quet jingled and smashed as they do on board a steamboat in 
a storm ; the liquor turned sour ; the Chancellor’s wig started 
off his head, and the Prince’s royal father, disgusted with his 
son’s appearance, drove him forth from his palace, and banished 
him the kingdom. 

Life was a burden to him on account of that nose. He 
fled from a world in which he was ashamed to show it, and 
would have preferred a perfect solitude, but that he was 
obliged to engage one faithful attendant to give him snuff ( his 
only consolation) and to keep his odious nose in order. 

But as he was wandering in a lonely forest, entangling his 
miserable trunk in the thickets, and causing the birds to fly 
scared from the branches, and the lions, stags, and foxes to 
sneak away in terror as they heard the tremendous booming 
which issued from the fated Prince whenever he had occasion 
to use his pocket-handkerchief, the Fairy of the Bandanna 
Islands took pity on him, and, descending in her car drawn by 
doves, gave him a ’kerchief which rendered him invisible when- 
ever he placed it over his monstrous proboscis. 

Having occasion to blow his nose (which he was obliged 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


52S 

to do pretty frequently, for he had taken cold while lying out 
among the rocks and morasses in the rainy miserable nights, 
so that the peasants, when they heard him snoring fitfully, 
thought that storms were abroad,) at the gates of a castle by 
which he was passing, the door burst open, and the Irish Giant 
(afterwards Clown, indeed,) came out, and wondering looked 
about, furious to see no one. 

The Prince entered into the castle, and whom should he 
find there but the Princess Rosolia , still plunged in despair. 
Her father snubbed her perpetually. “ I wish he would snub 
me ! ” exclaimed the Prince, pointing to his own monstrous 
deformity. In spite of his misfortune, she still remembered her 
Prince. “ Even with his nose,” the faithful Princess cried, 
“ I love him more than all the world beside ! ” 

At this declaration of unalterable fidelity, the Prince flung 
away his handkerchief, and knelt in rapture at the Princess’s 
feet. She was a little scared at first by the hideousness of the 
distorted being before her — but what will not woman’s faith 
overcome ? Hiding her head on his shoulder (and so losing 
sight of his misfortune), she vowed to love him still (in those 
broken verses which only Princesses in Pantomimes deliver.) 

At this instant King Gorgibus , the Giants, the King’s House- 
hold, with clubs and battle-axes, rushed in. Drawing his im- 
mense scimitar, and seizing the Prince by his too-prominent 
feature, he was just on the point of sacrificing him, when — when, 
I need not say, the Fairy Bandanna (Miss Bendigo), in her 
amaranthine car drawn by Paphian doves, appeared and put a 
stop to the massacre. Kmg Gorgibus became Pantaloon, the 
two Giants first and second Clowns, and the Prince and Prin- 
cess (who had been, all the time of the Fairy’s speech, and 
actually while under their father’s scimitar, unhooking their 
dresses) became the most elegant Harlequin and Columbine 
that I have seen for many a long day. The nose flew up to 
the ceiling, the music began a jig, and the two Clowns, after 
saying, “ How are you ? ” went and knocked down Pantaloon* 


IV. 

On the conclusion of the pantomime, the present memorialist 
had the honor to conduct the ladies under his charge to the 
portico of the theatre, where the green fly was in waiting to 
receive them. The driver was not more inebriated than usual \ 


526 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 

the young page with the gold-knobbed hat was there to protect 
his mistresses ; and though the chaperon of the party certainly 
invited me to return with them to Brompton and there drink 
tea, the proposal was made in terms so faint, and the refresh- 
ment offered was so moderate, that I declined to journey six 
miles on a cold night in order to partake of such a meal. The 
waterman of the coach-stand, who had made himself conspicuous 
by bawling out for Mrs. Flather’s carriage, was importunate 
with me to give him sixpence for pushing the ladies into the 
vehicle. But it was my opinion that Mrs. Flather ought to 
settle that demand ; and as, while the fellow was urging it, she 
only pulled up the glass, bidding Cox’s man to drive on, I of 
course did not interfere. In vulgar and immoral language he 
indicated, as usual, his discontent. I treated the fellow with 
playful and, I hope, gentlemanlike satire. 

Master Jones, who would not leave the box in the theatre 
until the people came to shroud it with brown-hollands, (by the 
way, to be the last person in a theatre — to put out the last 
light — and then to find one’s way out of the vast, black, lonely 
place, must require a very courageous heart) — Master Jones, I 
say, had previously taken leave of us, putting his arm under 
that of his father’s footman, who had been in the pit, and who 
conducted him to Russell Square. I heard Augustus proposing 
to have oysters as they went home, though he had twice in the 
course of the performance made excursions to the cake-room of 
the theatre, where he had partaken of oranges, macaroons, 
apples, and ginger-beer. 

As the altercation between myself and the linkman was 
going on, young Grigg (brother of Grigg of the Lifeguards, him- 
self reading for the Bar) came up, and hooking his arm into 
mine, desired the man to leave off “ chaffing ” me ; asked him 
if he would take a bill at three months for the money ; told 
him if he would call at the “ Horns Tavern,” Kennington, 
next Tuesday week, he would find sixpence there, done up for 
him in a brown paper parcel ; and quite routed my opponent. 
“I know^?z/, Mr. Grigg,” said he ; “ you’re a gentleman,^// 
are : ” and so retired, leaving the victory with me. 

Young Mr. Grigg is one of those young bucks about town, 
who goes every night of his life to two Theatres, to the Casino, 
to Weippert’s balls, to the Cafd de l’Haymarket, to Bob Slog- 
ger’s, the boxing-house, to the Harmonic Meetings at the 
“ Kidney Cellars,” and other places of fashionable resort. He 
knows everybody at these haunts of pleasure ; takes boxes for 
the actors’ benefits ; has the word from head-quarters about 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


527 

tfie venue of the fight between Putney Sambo and the Tutbury 
Pet ; gets up little dinners at their public-houses ; shoots pigeons, 
fights cocks, plays fives, has a boat on the river, and a room at 
Rummer’s in Conduit Street, besides his Chambers at the 
Temple, where his parents, Sir John and Lady Grigg, of Port- 
man Square, and Grisby Hall, Yorkshire, believe that he is 
assiduously occupied in studying the law. “ Tom applies too 
much,” her ladyship says. “ His father was obliged to remove 
him from Cambridge on account of a brain-fever brought on by 
hard reading, and in consequence of the jealousy of some of 
the collegians ; otherwise, I am told, he must have been Senior 
Wrangler, and seated first of the Tripod.” 

44 I’m going to begin the evening,” said this ingenuous young 
fellow ; “ I’ve only been at the Lowther Arcade, Weippert’s 
hop, and the billiard-rooms. I just toddled in for half an hour 
to see Brooke in Othello, and looked in for a few minutes behind 
the scenes at the Adelphi. What shall be the next resort of 
pleasure, Spec, my elderly juvenile ? Shall it be the 4 Sherry- 
Cobbler-Stall, ’ or the 4 Cave of Harmony ? ' There’s some 
prime glee-singing there.” 

44 What ! is the old 4 Cave of Harmony ’ still extant ? ” I 
asked. 44 1 have not been there these twenty years.” And 
memory carried me back to the days when Lightsides of Corpus, 
myself, and little Oaks, the Johnian, came up to town in a 
chaise-and-four, at the long vacation at the end of our fresh- 
man’s year, ordered turtle and venison for dinner at the 44 Bed- 
ford,” blubbered over Black-eved Susan at the play, and then 
finished the evening at that very Harmonic Cave, where the 
famous English Improvisatore sang with such prodigious talent 
that we asked him down to stay with us in the country. Spur- 
gin, and Hawker, the fellow-commoner of our College, I re- 
member me, were at the Cave too, and Bardolph, of Brasenose. 
Lord, lord ! what a battle and struggle and wear and tear of 
life there has been since then ! Hawker levanted, and Spurgin 
is dead these ten years ; little Oaks is a whiskered Captain of 
Heavy Dragoons, who cut down no end of Sikhs at Sobraon ; 
Lightsides, a Tractarian parson, who turns his head and walks 
another way when we meet ; and your humble servant — well, 
never mind. But in my spirit I saw them — all those blooming 
and jovial young boys — and Lightsides, with a cigar in his face, 
and a bang-up white coat, covered with mother-of-pearl cheese- 
plates, bellowing out for 44 First and Second Turn-out,” as our 
yellow post-chaise came rattling up to the inn-door at Ware. 

“ And so the 4 Cave of Harmony ’ is open,” I said, looking 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON, 


528 

at little Grigg with a sad and tender interest, and feeling that 
I was about a hundred years old. 

“ / believe you, my baw-aw-oy ! ” said he, adopting the tone 
of an exceedingly refined and popular actor, whose choral and 
comic powers render him a general favorite. 

“ Does Bivins keep it ? ” I asked, in a voice of profound 
melancholy. 

“ Hoh. ! What a flat you are ! You might as well ask if 
Mrs. Siddons acted Lady Macbeth to-night, and if Queen Anne’s 
dead or not. I tell you what, Spec, my boy — you’re getting a 
regular old flat — fogy, sir, a positive old fogy. How the deuce 
do you pretend to be a man about town, and not know that 
Bivins has left the Cavern ? Law bless you ! Come in and 
see : I know the landlord — I’ll introduce you to him.” 

This was an offer which no man could resist ; and so Grigg 
and I went through the Piazza, and down the steps of that 
well-remembered place of conviviality. Grigg knew everybody ; 
wagged his head in at the bar, and called for two glasses of his 
particular mixture ; nodded to the singers ; winked at one 
friend — put his little stick against his nose as a token of recog- 
nition to another ; and calling the waiter by his Christian name, 
poked him playfully with the end of his cane, and asked him 
whether he, Grigg, should have a lobster kidney, or a mashed 
oyster and scalloped ’taters, or a poached rabbit, for supper ? 

The room was full of young rakish-looking lads, with a 
dubious sprinkling of us middle-aged youth, and stalwart red- 
faced fellows from the country, with whiskey-noggins before 
them, and bent upon seeing life. A grand piano had been in- 
troduced into the apartment, which did not exist in the old 
days : otherwise, all was as of yore — smoke rising from scores 
of human chimneys, waiters bustling about with cigars and 
liquors in the intervals of the melody — and the President of the 
meeting (Bivins no more) encouraging gents to give their 
orders. 

Just as the music was about to begin, I looked opposite me, 
and there, by heavens ! sat Bardolph, of Brasenose, only a little 
more purple and a few shades more dingy than he used to look 
twenty years ago. 

v. 

Look at that old Greek in the cloak and fur collar opposite,” 
said my friend, Mr. Grigg. “ That chap is here every night. 
They call him Lord Farintosh. He has five glasses of whiskey* 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


and-water every night — seventeen hundred and twenty-five goes 
of alcohol in a year ; we totted it up one night at the bar. 
James the waiter is now taking number three to him. He 
don’t count the wine he has had at dinner.” Indeed, James the 
waiter, knowing the gentleman’s peculiarities, as soon as he 
saw Mr. Bardolph’s glass nearly empty, brought him another 
noggin and a jug of boiling water without a word. 

Memory carried me instantaneously back to the days of my 
youth. I had the honor of being at school with Bardolph 
before he went to Brasenose ; the under boys used to lookup at 
him from afar off, as like a godlike being. He was one of the 
head boys of the school ; a prodigious dandy in pigeon-hole 
trousers, ornamented with what they called “ tucks ” in front. 
He wore a ring — leaving the little finger on which he wore the 
jewel out of his pocket, in which he carried the rest of his 
hand. He had whiskers even then : and to this day I cannot 
understand why he is not seven feet high. When he shouted 
out, “ Under boy! ” we small ones trembled and came to him. 
I recollect he called me once from a hundred yards off, and I 
came in a tremor. He pointed to the ground. 

“ Pick up my hockey-stick,” he said, pointing towards it 
with the hand with the ring on ! He had dropped the stick. 
He was too great, wise, and good, to stoop to pick it up him- 
self. 

He got the silver medal for Latin Sapphics, in the year 
Pogram was gold-medallist. When he w^ent up to Oxford, the 
Head Master, the Rev. J. Flibber, complimented him in a vale- 
dictory speech, made him a present of books, and prophesied he 
would do great things at the University. He had got a scholar- 
ship and won a prize-poem, which the Doctor read out to the 
sixth form with great emotion. It was on “ The Recollections 
of Childhood,” and the last lines were,— 

" Qualia prospiciens catulus ferit aethera risu, 

Ipsaque trans lunae cornua vacca salit.” 

I thought of these things rapidly, gazing on the individual 
before me. The brilliant young fellow of 1815 (by the bye it 
was the Waterloo year, by which some people may remember 
it better ; but at school we spoke of years as “ Pogram’s year,” 
“Tokely’s year,” &c.) — there, I say, sat before me the dashing 
young buck of 1815, a fat, muzzy, red-faced old man, in a 
battered hat, absorbing whiskey-and-water, and half listening to 
the singing. 

A wild, long-haired, professional gentleman, with a fluty 
*4 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


530 

voice and with his shirt-collar turned down, began to sing 
as follows : — 

♦‘WHEN THE GLOOM IS ON THE GLEN. 

** When the moonlight’s on the mountain 
And the gloom is on the glen, 

At the cross beside the fountain 
There is one will meet thee then. 

At the cross beside the fountain; 

Yes, the cross beside the fountain. 

There is one will meet thee then 1 


[ Down goes half of Mr. Bardolph’s No. 3 Whiskey during this 

refrain .] 

M I have braved, since first we met, love. 

Many a danger in my course ; 

But I never can forget, love, 

That dear fountain, that old cross, 

Where, her mantle shrouded o’er her— 

For the winds were chilly then— 

First I met my Leonora, 

When the gloom was on the glen, 

Yes, 1 met my, &c. 

[Another gulp and almost total disappearance of 
Whiskey- Go, No. 3. 

“ Many a clime I’ve ranged since then, love, 

Many a land I’ve wandered o’er 
But a valley like that glen, love. 

Half so aear I never sor ! 

Ne’er saw maiden fairer, coyer, 

Than wert thou, my true love, when 
In the gloaming first 1 saw yer, 

In the gloaming of the glen 1 ” 

Bardolph, who had not shown the least symptoms of emo- 
tion as the gentleman with the fluty voice performed this de- 
lectable composition, began to whack, whack, whack on the 
mahogany with his pewter measure at the conclusion of the 
song, wishing perhaps to show that the noggin was empty ; in 
which manner James, the waiter, interpreted the signal, for 
he brought Mr. Bardolph another supply of liquor. 

The song, words, and music, composed and dedicated to 
Charles Bivins, Esquire, by Frederic Snape, and ornamented 
with a picture of a young lady, with large eyes and short petti- 
coats, leaning at a stone cross by a fountain, was now handed 
about the room by a waiter, and any gentleman was at liberty 
to purchase it for half a crown. The man did not offer the: 
song to Bardolph ; he was too old a hand. 

After a pause the president of the musical gents cried out 
for silence again, and then stated to the company that Mr.. 
Hoff would sing “ The Red Flag,” which announcement was- 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


53 * 


received by the Society with immense applause, and Mr. 
Hoff, a gentleman whom I remember to have seen exceedingly 
unwell on board a Gravesend steamer, began the following 
terrific ballad : — 

“ THE RED FLAG. 

u Where the quivering lightning flings 
His arrows from out the clouds, 

And the howling tempest sings, 

And whistles among the shrouds, 

’Tis pleasant, ’tis pleasant to ride 
Along the foaming brine — 

Wilt be the Rover’s Dride ? 

Wilt follow him, lady mine ? 

' Hurrah! 

For the bonny, bonny brine. 

“ Amidst the storm and rack, 

You shall see our galley pass 
As a serpent, lithe and black, 

Glides through the waving grass. 

As the vulture swift and dark, 

Down on the ring-dove flies, 

You shall see the Rover’s bark 
Swoop down upon his prize. 

Hurrah! 

For the bonny, bonny prize. 

“ Over her sides we dash, 

We gallop across her deck— 

Ha ! there’s a ghastly gash 

On the merchant-captain’s neck — 

Well shot, well shot, old Ned! 

Well struck, well struck, black James! 

Our arms are red, and our foes are dead, 

And we leave a ship in flames ! 

Hurrah ! 

For the bonny, bonny flames! ” 

Frantic shouts of applause and encore hailed the atrocious 
sentiments conveyed by Mr. Hoff in this ballad, from everybody 
except Bardolph, who sat muzzy and unmoved, and only winked 
to the waiter to bring him some more whiskey. 


VI. 

When the piratical ballad of Mr. Hoff was concluded, a 
simple and quiet-looking young gentleman performed a comic 
song, in a way which, I must confess, inspired me with the 
utmost melancholy. Seated at the table with the other profes- 
sional gents, this young gentleman was in no wise to be dis- 
tinguished from any other young man of fashion : he has a 
thin, handsome, and rather sad countenance ; and appears to 
be a perfectly sober and meritorious young man. But suddenly 


53 2 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


(and I dare say every night of his life) he pulls a little flexible, 
gray countryman’s hat out of his pocket, and the moment he has 
put it on, his face assumes an expression of unutterable vacuity 
and foky, his eyes goggle round savage, and his mouth stretches 
almost to his ears, as thus, and he begins to sing a rustic song. 

The battle-song and the sentimental ballad already pub- 
lished are, I trust, sufficiently foolish, and fair specimens of the 
class of poetry to which they belong ; but the folly of the comic 
country song was so great and matchless, that I am not going 
to compete for a moment with the author, or to venture to 
attempt anything like his style of composition. It was some- 
thing about a man going a courting Molly, and “ feayther,” and 
“kyows,” and “peegs,” and other rustic produce. The idiotic 
verse was interspersed with spoken passages, of corresponding 
imbecility. For the time during which Mr. Grinsby performed 
this piece, he consented to abnegate altogether his claim to be 
considered as a reasonable being ; utterly to debase himself, in 
•order to make the company laugh ; and to forget the rank, 
dignity, and privileges of a man. 

His song made me so profoundly wretched that little Grigg, 
remarking my depression, declared I was as slow as a parlia- 
mentary train. I was glad they didn’t have the song over again. 
When it was done, Mr. Grinsby put his little gray hat in his 
pocket, the maniacal grin subsided from his features, and he 
sat down with his naturally sad and rather handsome young 
countenance. 

O Grinsby, thinks I, what a number of people and things in 
this world do you represent ! Though we weary listening to 
you, we may moralize over you ; though you sing a foolish, 
witless song, you poor young melancholy jester, there is some 
good in it that may be had for the seeking. Perhaps that lad 
has a family at home dependent on his grinning : I may enter- 
tain a reasonable hope that he has despair in his heart ; a com- 
plete notion of the folly of the business in which he is engaged ; 
a contempt for the fools laughing and guffawing round about at 
his miserable jokes ; and a perfect weariness of mind at their 
original dulness and continued repetition. What a sinking of 
spirit must come over that young man, quiet in his chamber or 
family, orderly and sensible like other mortals, when the thought 
of tom-fool hour comes across him, and that at a certain time 
that night, whatever may be his health, or distaste, or mood of 
mind or body, there he must be, at a table at the “ Cave of 
Harmony,” uttering insane ballads, with an idiotic grin on hi v s 
face and hat on his head. 


SKETCHES AND TEA EELS IN LONDON. 


533 


To suppose that Grinsby has any personal pleasure in that 
song, would be to have too low an opinion of human nature : 
to imagine that the applauses of the multitude of the frequenters 
of the Cave tickled his vanity, or are bestowed upon him de- 
servedly — would be, I say, to think too hardly of him. Look 
at him. He sits there quite a quiet, orderly young fellow. 
Mark with what an abstracted, sad air he joins in the chorus 
of Mr. Snape’s second song, “The Minaret’s bells o’er the 
Bosphorus toll,” and having applauded his comrade at the end 
of the song (as I have remarked these poor gentlemen always 
do), moodily resumes the stump of his cigar. 

“ I wonder, my dear Grigg, how many men there are in the 
City, who follow a similar profession to Grinsby ? What a 
number of poor rogues, wits in their circle, or bilious, or in 
debt, or henpecked, or otherwise miserable in their private cir- 
cumstances, come grinning out to dinner of a night, and laugh, 
and crack, and let off their good stories like yonder professional 
funny fellow ? Why, I once went into the room of that famous 
dinner-party conversationalist and wit, Horsely Collard ; and 
whilst he was in his dressing-room arranging his wig, just looked 
over the books on the table before his sofa. There were 
‘Burton’s Anatomy’ for the quotations, three of which he let 
off that night ; ‘ Spence’s Literary Anecdotes,’ of which he 
fortuitously introduced a couple in the course of the evening ; 
‘ Baker’s Chronicle ; ’ the last new Novel, and a book of Meta- 
physics, every one of which I heard him quote, besides four 
stories out of his commonplace-book, at which I took a peep 
under the pillow. He was like Grinsby.” Who isn't like 
Grinsby in life ? thought I to myself, examining that young 
fellow. 

“ When Bawler goes down to the House of Commons from 
a meeting with his creditors, and having been a bankrupt a 
month before, becomes a patriot all of a sudden, and pours you 
out an intensely interesting speech upon the West Indies, of 
the Window Tax, he is no better than the poor gin-and-water 
practitioner yonder, and performs in his Cave, as Grinsby in his 
under the Piazza. 

M When Serjeant Bluebag fires into a witness, or performs a 
jocular or a pathetic speech to a jury, in what is he better than 
Grinsby, except in so far as the amount of gain goes ? — than 
poor Grinsby rapping at the table and cutting professional jokes, 
at half-a-pint-of-whiskey fee ? 

“ When Tightrope, the celebrated literary genius, sits down 
to write and laugh — with the children very likely ill at home— 


534 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON 


with a strong personal desire to write a tragedy or a sermon, 
with his wife scolding him, his head racking with pain, his 
mother-in-law making a noise at his ears, and telling him that 
he is a heartless and abandoned ruffian, his tailor in the passage, 
vowing that he will not quit that place until his little bill is 
settled — when, I say, Tightrope writes off under the most 
miserable private circumstances, a brilliant funny article, in how 
much is he morally superior to my friend Grinsby ? When 
Lord Colchicum stands bowing and smiling before his sover- 
eign, with gout in his toes and grief in his heart ; when parsons 
in the pulpit — when editors at their desks — forget their natural 
griefs, pleasures, opinions, to go through the business of life, 
the masquerade of existence, in what are they better than 
Grinsby yonder, who has similarly to perform his buffooning ? ” 

As I was continuing in this moral and interrogatory mood 
— no doubt boring poor little Grigg, who came to the Cave for 
pleasure, and not for philosophical discourse — Mr. Bardolph 
opposite caught a sight of the present writer through the fumes 
of the cigars, and came across to our table, holding his fourth 
glass of toddy in his hand. He held out the other to me ; it 
was hot, and gouty, and not particularly clean. 

“ Deuced queer place this, hey ? ” said he, pretending to 
survey it with the air of a stranger. “ I come here every now 
and then, on my way home to Lincoln’s Inn — from — from 
parties at the other end of the town. It is frequented by a 
parcel of queer people — low shop-boys and attorneys’ clerks ; 
but hang it, sir, they know a gentleman when they see one, and 
not one of those fellows would dare to speak to me — no, not 
one of ’em, by Jove — if I didn’t address him first, by Jove f I 
don’t suppose there’s a man in this room could construe a page 
in the commonest Greek book. You heard that donkey sing- 
ing about ‘ Leonorar ’ and ‘ before her ? ’ How Flibber would 
have given it to us for such rhymes, hey ? A parcel of igno- 
ramuses ! but, hang it, sir, they do know a gentleman ! ” And 
here he winked at me with a vinous bloodshot eye, as much as 
to intimate that he was infinitely superior to every person in 
the room. 

Now this Bardolph, having had the ill-luck to get a fellow- 
ship, and subsequently a small private fortune, has done nothing 
since the year 1820 but get drunk and read Greek. He 
despises every man that does not know that language (so that 
you and I, my dear sir, come in for a fair share of his contempt). 
He can still put a slang song into Greek Iambics, or turn a 
police report into the language of Tacitus or Herodotus ; but 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


535 . 

it is difficult to see what accomplishment beyond this the boozy 
old mortal possesses. He spends nearly a third part of his life 
and income at his dinner, or on his whiskey at a tavern ; more 
than another third portion is spent in bed. It is past noon 
before he gets up to breakfast, and to spell over The Times, 
which business of the day being completed, it is time for him to 
dress and take his walk to the Club to dinner. He scorns a 
man who puts his h’s in the wrong place, and spits at a human 
being who has not had a University education. And yet I am 
sure that bustling waiter pushing about with a bumper of cigars ; 
that tallow-faced young comic singer; yonder harmless and 
happy Snobs, enjoying the conviviality of the evening (and all 
the songs are quite modest now, not like the ribald old ditties 
which they used to sing in former days), are more useful, more 
honorable, and more worthy men, than that whiskeyfied old 
scholar who looks down upon them and their like. 

He said he would have a sixth glass if we would stop ; but 
we didn’t ; and he took his sixth glass without us. My melan- 
choly young friend had begun another comic song, and I could 
bear it no more. The market carts were rattling into Covent 
Garden; and the illuminated clock marked all sorts of small 
hours as we concluded this night’s pleasure. 


GOING TO SEE A MAN HANGED * 

July, 1840. 

X , who had voted with Mr. Ewart for the abolition of 

the punishment of death, was anxious to see the effect on the 
public mind of an execution, and asked me to accompany him 
to see Courvoisier killed. We had not the advantage of a 
sheriff’s order, like the “ six hundred noblemen and gentlemen ” 
who were admitted within the walls of the prison ; but deter- 
mined to mingle with the crowd at the foot of the scaffold, and 
take up our positions at a very early hour. 

As I was to rise at three in the morning, I went to bed at 
ten, thinking that five hours’ sleep would be amply sufficient to 
brace me against the fatigues of the coming day. But, as might 
have been expected, the event of the morrow was perpetually 
before my eyes through the night, and kept them wide open. I 

* Originally published in Fraser's Magazine. 


53 6 SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 

heard all the clocks in the neighborhood chime the hours in 
succession ; a dog from some court hard by kept up a pitiful 
howling ; at one o’clock, a cock set up a feeble, melancholy 
crowing ; shortly after two the daylight came peeping gray 
through the window-shutters ; and by the time that X ar- 

rived, in fulfilment of his promise, I had been asleep about half 
an hour. He, more wise, had not gone to rest at all, but had 
remained up all night at the Club, along with Dash and two or 
three more. Dash is one of the most eminent wits in London, 
and had kept the company merry all night with appropriate 
jokes about the coming event. It is curious that a murder is a 
great inspirer of jokes. We all like to laugh and have our fling 
about it ; there is a certain grim pleasure in the circumstance — 
a perpetual jingling antithesis between life and death, that is 
sure of its effect. 

In mansion or garret, on down or straw, surrounded by 
weeping friends and solemn oily doctors, or tossing unheeded 
upon scanty hospital beds, there were many people in this great 
City to whom that Sunday night was to be the last of any that 
they should pass on earth here. In the course of half a dozen 
dark, wakeful hours, one had leisure to think of these (and a 
little, too, of that certain supreme night, that shall come at one 
time or other, when he who writes shall be stretched upon the 
last bed, prostrate in the last struggle, taking the last look of 
dear faces that have cheered us here, and lingering — one mo- 
ment more — ere we part for the tremendous journey) ; but, 
chiefly, I could not help thinking, as each clock sounded, what 
is he doing now ? has he heard it in his little room in Newgate 
yonder ? Eleven o’clock. He has been writing until now. 
The jailer says he is a pleasant man enough to be with ; but 
he can hold out no longer, and is very weary. “ Wake me at 
four,” says he, “for I have still much to put down.” From 
eleven to twelve the jailer hears how he is grinding his teeth 
in his sleep. At twelve he is up in his bed, and asks, “ Is it the 
time ? ” He has plenty more time yet for sleep ; and he sleeps, 
and the bell goes on tolling. Seven hours more — five hours 
more. Many a carriage is clattering through the streets, bring- 
ing ladies away from evening-parties ; many bachelors are reel- 
ing home after a jolly night ; Covent Garden is alive and the 
light coming through the cell-window turns the jailer’s candle 
pale. Four hours more ! “ Courvoisier,” says the jailer, 

shaking him, “ it’s four o’clock now, and I’ve woke you as you 
told me ; but there’s no call for you to get up yet” The poor 
wretch leaves his bed, however, and makes his last toilet : and 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON 


537 


then falls to writing, to tell the world how he did the crime for 
which he has suffered. This time he will tell the truth, and the 
whole truth. They bring him his breakfast “ from the coffee- 
shop opposite- -tea, coffee, and thin bread and butter.” He 
will take nothing, however, but goes on writing. He has to 
write to his mother — the pious mother far away in his own 
country — who reared him and loved him ; and even now has 
sent him her forgiveness and her blessing. He finishes his 
memorials and letters, and makes his will, disposing of his little 
miserable property of books and tracts that pious people have 
furnished him with. “ Ce 6 Juillet, 1840. Francois Benjamin 
Courvoisier vous donne ceci, mon ami, pour souvenir.” He has a 
token for his dear friend the jailer ; another for his dear friend 
the under-sheriff. As the day of the convict’s death draws 
nigh, it is painful to see how he fastens upon everybody who 
approaches him, how pitifully he clings to them and loves 
them. 

While these things are going on within the prison (with 
which we are made accurately acquainted by the copious chron- 
icles of such events which are published subsequently), X ’s 

carriage has driven up to the door of my lodgings, and we have 
partaken of an elegant dejeuner that has been prepared for the 
occasion. A cup of coffee at half-past three in the morning is 
uncommonly pleasant ; and X enlivens us with the repeti- 

tion of the jokes that Dash has just been making. Admirable, 
certainly — they must have had a merry night of it, that’s clear ; 
and we stoutly debate whether, when one has to get up so early 
in the morning, it is best to have an hour or two of sleep, or 
wait and go to bed afterwards at the end of the day’s work. 
That fowl is extraordinarily tough — the wing, even, is as hard as 
a board ; a slight disappointment, for there is nothing else for 
breakfast. “Will any gentleman have some sherry and soda- 
water before he sets out? It clears the brains famously.” 
Thus primed, the party sets out. The coachman has dropped 
asleep on the box, and wakes up wildly as the hall-door opens. 
It is just four o’clock. About this very time they are waking 

up poor — pshaw ! who is for a cigar ? X does not smoke 

himself ; but vows and protests, in the kindest way in the 
world, that he does not care in the least for the new drab silk 

linings in his carriage. Z who smokes, mounts, however, 

the box. “ Drive to Snow Hill,” says the owner of the chariot. 
The policemen, who are the only people in the street, and are 
standing by, look knowing — they know what it means well 
enough. 


538 SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 

How cool and clean the streets look, as the carriage startles 
the echoes that have been asleep in the corners all night. 
Somebody has been sweeping the pavements clean in the night' 
time surely; they would not soil a lady’s white satin shoes, they 
are so dry and neat. There is not a cloud or a breath in the 

air, except Z ’s cigar, which whiffs off, and soars straight 

upwards in volumes of white, pure smoke. The trees in the 
squares look bright and green — as bright as leaves in the coun- 
try in June. We who keep late hours don’t know the beauty of 
London air and verdure ; in the early morning they are delight- 
ful — the most fresh and lively companions possible. But they 
cannot bear the crowd and the bustle of mid-day. You don’t 
know them then — they are no longer the same things. We 
have come to Gray’s Inn ; there is actually dew upon the grass 
in the gardens ; and the windows of the stout old red houses 
are all in a flame. 

As we enter Holborn the town grows more animated ; and 
there are already twice as many people in the streets as you see 
at mid-day in a German Residejiz or an English provincial town. 
The gin-shop keepers have many of them taken their shutters 
down, and many persons are issuing from them pipe in hand. 
Down they go along the broad bright street, their blue shadows 
marching after them ; for they are all bound the same way, and 
are bent like us upon seeing the hanging. 

It is twenty minutes past four as we pass St. Sepulchre’s : 
by this time many hundred people are in the street, and many 
more are coming up Snow Hill. Before us lies Newgate Prison ; 
but something a great deal more awful to look at, which seizes 
the eye at once, and makes the heart beat, is 



There it stands black and ready, jutting out from a little 
door in the prison. As you see it, you feel a kind of dumb 
electric shock, which causes one to start a little, and give a sort 
of gasp for breath. The shock is over in a second ; and pres- 
ently you examine the object before you with a certain feeling 
of complacent curiosity. At least, such was the effect that the 



SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


539 


gallows produced upon the writer, who is trying to set down all 
his feelings as they occurred, and not to exaggerate them at all. 

After the gallows-shock had subsided, we went down into 
the crowd, which was very numerous, but not dense as yet. It 
was evident that the day’s business had not begun. People 
sauntered up, and formed groups, and talked ; the new-comers 
asking those who seemed habitues of the place about former ex- 
ecutions ; and did the victim hang with his face towards the 
clock or towards Ludgate Hill ? and had he the rope round his 
neck when he came on the scaffold, or was it put on by Jack 

Ketch afterwards ? and had Lord W taken a window, and 

which was he ? I may mention the noble Marquis’s name, as 

he was not at the exhibition. A pseudo W was pointed 

out in an opposite window, towards whom all the people in our 
neighborhood looked eagerly, and with great respect too. The 
mob. seemed to have no sort of ill-will against him, but sym- 
pathy and admiration. This noble lord’s personal courage and 
strength have won the plebs over to him. Perhaps his exploits 
against policemen have occasioned some of this popularity ; 
for the mob hate them, as children the schoolmaster. 

Throughout the whole four hours, however, the mob was 
extraordinarily gentle and good-humored. At first we had lei- 
sure to talk to the people about us ; and I recommend X ’s 

brother senators of both sides of the House to see more of 
this same people and to appreciate them better. Honorable 
Members are battling, and struggling in the House ; shouting, 
yelling, crowing, hear-hearing, pooh-poohing, making speeches 
of three columns, and gaining “great Conservative triumphs,” 
or “ signal successes of the Reform cause,” as the case may be. 
Three hundred and ten gentlemen of good fortune, and able 
for the most part to quote Horace, declare solemnly that unless 
Sir Robert comes in, the nation is ruined. Three hundred and 
fifteen on the other side swear by their great gods that the 
safety of the empire depends upon Lord John ; and to this end 
they quote Horace too. I declare that I have never been in a 
great London crowd without thinking of what they call the two 
“great” parties in England with wonder. For which of the 
two great leaders do these people care, I pray you ? When 
Lord Stanley withdrew his Irish bill the other night, were they 
in transports of joy, like worthy persons who read the Globe and 
the Chronicle ? or when he beat the Ministers, were they wild 
with delight, like honest gentlemen who read the Post and the 
Times ? Ask yonder ragged fellow, who has evidently fre- 
quented debating-clubs, and speaks with good sense and shrewd 


540 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


good-nature. He cares no more for Lord John than he does 
for Sir Robert ; and with due respect be it said, would mind 
very little if both of them were ushered out by Mr. Ketch, and 
took their places under yonder black beam. What are the two 
great parties to him, and those like him ? Sheer wind, hollow 
humbug, absurd claptraps ; a silly mummery of dividing and 
debating, which does not in the least, however it may turn, 
affect his condition. It has been so ever since the happy days 
when Whigs and Tories began ; and a pretty pastime no doubt 
it is for both. August parties, great balances of English free- 
dom : are not the two sides quite as active, and eager, and loud, 
as at their very birth, and ready to fight for place as stoutly as 
ever they fought before ? But lo ! in the mean time, whilst you 
are jangling and brawling over the accounts, Populus , whose 
estate you have administered while he was an infant, and could 
not take care of himself — Populus has been growing and grow- 
ing, till he is every bit as wise as his guardians. Talk to oui 
ragged friend. He is not so polished, perhaps, as a member 
of the “ Oxford and Cambridge Club ; ” he has not been to 
Eton ; and never read Horace in his life ; but he can think 
just as soundly as the best of you ; he can speak quite as 
strongly in his own rough way ; he has been reading all sorts 
of books of late years, and gathered together no little informa- 
tion. He is as good a man as the common run of us; and 
there are ten million more men in the country as good as he, — 
ten million, for whom we, in our infinite superiority, are acting 
as guardians, and to whom, in our bounty, we give — exactly 
nothing. Put yourself in their position, worthy sir. You and 
a hundred others find yourselves in some lone place, where you 
set up a government. You take a chief, as is natural; he is 
the cheapest order-keeper in the world. You establish half 
a dozen worthies, whose families you say shall have the priv- 
ilege to legislate for you forever ; half a dozen more, who shall 
be appointed by a choice of thirty of the rest : and the other 
sixty, who shall have no choice, vote, place, or privilege, at all. 
Honorable sir, suppose that you are one of the last sixty : how 
will you feel, you who have intelligence, passions, honest pride, 
as well as your neighbor ; how will you feel towards your 
equals, in whose hands lie all the power and all the property 
of the community ? Would you love and honor them, tamely 
acquiesce in their superiority, see their privileges, and go 
yourself disregarded without a pang ? you are not a man if 
you would. I am not talking of right or wrong, or debating 
questions of government. But ask my friend there, with the 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


54i 


ragged elbows and no shirt, what he thinks ? You have your 
party, Conservative or Whig, as it may be. You believe that 
an aristocracy is an institution necessary, beautiful, and virtu- 
ous. You are a gentleman, in other words, and stick by your 
party. 

And our friend with the elbows (the crowd is thickening 
hugely all this time) sticks by his. Talk to him of Whig or 
Tory, he grins at them : of virtual representation, pish ! He 
is a democrat , and will stand by his friends, as you by yours ; 
and they are twenty millions, his friends, of whom a vast mi- 
nority now, a majority a few years hence, will be as good as you. 
In the mean time we shall continue electing, and debating, and 
dividing, and having every day new triumphs for the glorious 
cause of Conservatism, or the glorious cause of Reform, 
until 

* * * * * 

What is the meaning of this unconscionable republican tirade 
- — apropos of a hanging? Such feelings, I think, must come 
.across any man in a vast multitude like this. What good sense 
:and intelligence have most of the people by whom you are sur- 
rounded ; how much sound humor does one hear bandied about 
from one to another ! A great number of coarse phrases are used 
that would make ladies in drawing-rooms blush but the morals 
of the men are good and hearty. A ragamuffin in the crowd 
(a powdery baker in a white sheep’s-wool cap) uses some inde- 
cent expression to a woman near : there is an instant cry of 
shame, which silences the man, and a dozen people are ready 
to give the woman protection. The crowd has grown very 
dense by this time, it is about six o’clock, and there is great 
heaving, and pushing, and swaying to and fro ; but round the 
women the men have formed a circle, and keep them as much 
as possible out of the rush and trample. In one of the houses 
near us, a gallery has been formed on the roof. Seats were 
here let, and a number of persons of various degrees were oc- 
cupying them. Several tipsy, dissolute-looking young men, of 
the Dick Swiveller cast, were in this gallery. One was lolling 
over the sunshiny tiles, with a fierce sodden face, out of which 
came a pipe, and which was shaded by long matted hair, and a 
hat cocked very much on one side. This gentleman was one of 
a party which had evidently not been to bed on Sunday night, but 
had passed it in some of those delectable night-houses in the 
neighborhood of Covent Garden. The debauch was not over 
yet, and the women of the party were giggling, drinking, and 
romping, as is the wont of these delicate creatures ; sprawling 


542 


SKETCHES AND TEA VETS IN LONDON 


here and there, and falling upon the knees of one or other of 
the males. Their scarfs were off their shoulders, and you saw 
the sun shining down upon the bare white flesh, and the 
shoulder-points glittering like burning-glasses. The people 
about us were very indignant at some of the proceedings of 
this debauched crew, and at last raised up such a yell as fright- 
ened them into shame, and they were more orderly for the re- 
mainder of the day. The windows of the shops opposite began 
to fill apace, and our before-mentioned friend with ragged 
elbows pointed out a celebrated fashionable character who oc- 
cupied one of them ; and, to our surprise, knew as much about 
him as the Court Journal or the Morning Post. Presently he 
entertained us with a long and pretty accurate account of the 

history of Lady , and indulged in a judicious criticism 

upon her last work. I have met with many a country gentle- 
man who had not read half as many books as this honest fellow, 
this shrewd protitaire in a black shirt. The people about him 
took up and carried on the conversation very knowingly, and 
were very little behind him in point of information. It was 
just as good a company as one meets on common occasions. 
I was in a genteel crowd in one of the galleries at the Queen’s 
coronation ; indeed, in point of intelligence, the democrats were 
quite equal to the aristocrats. How many more such groups 
were there in this immense multitude of nearly forty thousand, 
as some say ? How many more such throughout the country ? 
I never yet, as I said before, have been in an English mob, 
without the same feeling for the persons who composed it, and 
without wonder at the vigorous, orderly good sense and intelli- 
gence of the people. 

The character of the crowd was as yet, however, quite fes- 
tive. Jokes bandying about here and there, and jolly laughs 
breaking out. Some men were endeavoring to climb up a 
leaden pipe on one of the houses. The landlord came out, and 
endeavored with might and main to pull them down. Many 
thousand eyes turned upon this contest immediately. All sorts 
of voices issued from the crowd, and uttered choice expressions 
of slang. When one of the men was pulled down by the leg, 
the waves of this black mob-ocean laughed innumerably ; when 
one fellow slipped away, scrambled up the pipe, and made good 
his lodgment on the shelf, we were all made happy, and en- 
couraged him by loud shouts of admiration. What is there so 
particularly delightful in the spectacle of a man clambering up 
a gas-pipe ? Why were we kept for a quarter of an hour in 
deep interest gazing upon this remarkable scene \ Indeed it 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


543 


is hard to say : a man does not know what a fool he is until he 
tries; or, at least what mean follies will amuse him. The 
other day I went to Astley’s, and saw clown come in with a 
fool’s-cap and pinafore, and six small boys who represented his 
school-fellows. To them enters schoolmaster ; horses clown, 
and flogs him hugely on the back part of his pinafore. I 
never read anything in Swift, Boz, Rabelais, Fielding, Paul de 
Kock, which delighted me so much as this sight, and caused 
me to laugh so profoundly. And why ? What is there so 
ridiculous in the sight of one miserably rouged man beating 
another on the breech ? Tell us where the fun lies in this 
and the before-mentioned episode of the gas-pipe? Vast, in- 
deed, are the capacities and ingenuities of the human soul 
that can find, in incidents so wonderfully small, means of con- 
templation and amusement. 

Really the time passed away with extraordinary quickness. 
A thousand things of the sort related here came to amuse us. 
First the workmen knocking and hammering at the scaffold, 
mysterious clattering of blows was heard within it, and a ladder 
painted black was carried round, and into the interior of the 
edifice by a small side door. We all looked at this little ladder 
and at each other — things began to be very interesting. Soon 
came a squad of policemen ; stalwart, rosy-looking men, saying 
much for City feeding ; well-dressed, well-limbed, and of admi- 
rable good-humor. They paced about the open space between 
the prison and the barriers which kept in the crowd from the 
scaffold. The front line, as far as I could see, was chiefly oc- 
cupied by blackguards and boys — professional persons, no doubt, 
who saluted the policemen on their appearance with a volley of 
jokes and ribaldry. As far as I could judge from faces, there 
were more blackguards of sixteen and seventeen than of any 
maturer age ; stunted, sallow, ill-grown lads, in rugged fustian, 
scowling about. There were a considerable number of girls, too, 
of the same age ; one that Cruikshank and Boz might have taken 
as a study for Nancy. The girl was a young thief’s mistress evi- 
dently ; if attacked, ready to reply without a particle of modesty ; 
could give as good ribaldry as she got ; made no secret (and 
there were several inquiries) as to her profession and means of 
livelihood. But with all this, there was something good about 
the girl ; a sort of devil-may-care candor and simplicity that one 
could not fail to see. Her answers to some of the coarse ques- 
tionS^put to her, were very ready and good-humored. She had 
a friend with her of the same age and class, of whom she 
seemed to be very fond, and who looked up to her for protec- 


544 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


tion. Both of these women had beautiful eyes. Devil-may^ 
care’s were extraordinarily bright and blue, an admirably fair 
complexion, and a large red mouth full of white teeth. Au resU 
ugly, stunted, thick-limbed, and by no means a beauty. Her 
friend could not be more than fifteen. They were not in rags, 
but had greasy cotton shawls, and old, faded, rag-shop bonnets. 

I was curious to look at them, having, in late fashionable novels, 
read many accounts of such personages. Bah ! what figments 
these novelists tell us ! Boz, who knows life well, knows that 
his Miss Nancy is the most unreal fantastical personage possi- 
ble ; no more like a thief’s mistress than one of Gesner’s shep- 
herdesses resembles a real country wench. He dare not tell 
the truth concerning such young ladies. They have, no doubt, 
virtues like other human creatures ; nay, their position engen- 
ders virtues that are not called into exercise among other 
women. But on these an honest painter of human nature has 
no right to dwell ; not being able to paint the whole portrait, he 
has no right to present one or two favorable points as charac- 
terizing the whole ; and therefore, in fact, had better leave the 
picture alone altogether. The new French literature is essen- 
tially false and worthless from this very error — the writers giv- 
ing us favorable pictures of monsters, and (to say nothing of 
decency or morality) pictures quite untrue to nature. 

But yonder, glittering through the crowd in Newgate Street 
— see, the Sheriffs’ carriages are slowly making their way. We 
have been here three hours ! Is it possible that they can have 
passed so soon ? Close to the barriers where we are, the mob' 
has become so dense that it is with difficulty a man can keep 
his feet. Each man, however, is very careful in protecting the* 
women, and all are full of jokes and good-humor. The windows: 
of the shops opposite are now pretty nearly filled by the persons 
who hired them. Many young dandies are there with mus- 
taches and cigars ; some quiet, fat, family-parties, of simple, 
honest tradesmen and their wives, as we fancy, who are looking 
on with the greatest imaginable calmness, and sipping their 

tea. Yonder is the sham Lord W , who is flinging various 

articles among the crowd ; one of his companions, a tall, burly 
man, with large mustaches, has provided himself with a squirt, 
and is aspersing the mob with brandy-and-water. Honest 
gentleman ! high-bred aristocrat ! genuine lover of humor and 
wit ! I would walk some miles to. see thee on the tread-mill, thee 
and thy Mohawk crew ! 

We tried to get up a hiss against these ruffians, but only 
had a trifling success ; the crowd did not seem to think their 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON. 


545 


offence very^ heinous ; and our friend, the philosopher in the 
ragged elbows, who had remained near us all the time, was not 
inspired with any such savage disgust at the proceedings of 
certain notorious young gentlemen, as I must confess fills my 
own particular bosom. He only said, “ So-and-so is a lord, 
and they’ll let him off,” and then discoursed about Lord Ferrers 
being hanged. The philosopher knew the history pretty well, 
and so did most of the little knot of persons about him, and 
it must be a gratifying thing for young gentlemen to find that 
their actions are made the subject of this kind of conversation. 

Scarcely a word had been said about Courvoisier all this 
time. We were all, as far as I could judge, in just such a frame 
of mind as men are in when they are squeezing at the pit door 
of a play, or pushing for a review or a Lord Mayor’s show. 
We asked most of the men who were near us, whether they had 
seen many executions ? most of them had, the philosopher 
especially ; whether the sight of them did any good ? “ For 

the matter of that, no ; people did not care about them at all ; 
nobody ever thought of it after a bit.” A countryman, who 
had left his drove in Smithfield, said the same thing ; he had 
seen a man hanged at York, and spoke of the ceremony with 
perfect good sense, and in a quiet, sagacious way. 

J. S , the famous wit, now dead, had, I recollect, a good 

story upon the subject of executing, and of the terror which 
the punishment inspires. After Thistlewood and his companions 
were hanged, their heads were taken off, according to the sen- 
tence, and the executioner, as he severed each, held it up to 
the crowd, in the proper orthodox way, saying, “ Here is the 
head of a traitor ! ” At the sight of the first ghastly head the 
people were struck with terror, and a general expression of 
disgust and fear broke from them. The second head was looked 
at also with much interest, but the excitement regarding the 
third head diminished. When the executioner had come to 
the last of the heads, he lifted it up, but, by some clumsiness, 
allowed it to drop. At this the crowd yelled out, “Ah, Butter - 
fingers /” — the excitement had passed entirely away. The 
punishment had grown to be a joke — Butter-fingers was the 
word — a pretty commentary, indeed, upon the august nature of 
public executions, and the awful majesty of the law. 

It was past seven now ; the quarters rang and passed away ; 
the crowd began to grow very eager and more quiet, and we 
turned back every now and then and looked at St. Sepulchre’s 
clock. Half an hour, twenty-five minutes. What is he doing 
pow? He has his irons off by this time. A quarter: he’s in 

35 


^ 4.6 SKETCHES A HD TEA VELS TV LONDOH. 

the press-room now, no doubt. Now at last we had come to 
think about the man we were going to see hanged. How slowly 
the clock crept over the last quarter ! Those who were able 
to turn round and see (for the crowd was now extraordinarily 
dense) chronicled the time, eight minutes, five minutes ; at 
last — ding, dong, dong, dong ! — the bell is tolling the chimes 
of eight. 

****** 

Between the writing of this line and the last, the pen has 
been put down, as the reader may suppose, and the person who 
is addressing him has gone through a pause of no very pleas- 
ant thoughts 'and recollections. The whole of the sickening, 
ghastly, wicked scene passes before the eyes again ; and, indeed, 
it is an awful one to see, and very hard and painful to describe. 

As the clock began to strike, an immense sway and move- 
ment swept over the whole of that vast dense crowd. They 
were all uncovered directly, and a great murmur arose, more 
awful, bizarre, and indescribable than any sound I had ever be- 
fore heard. Women and children began to shriek horridly. I 
don’t know whether it was the bell I heard ; but a dreadful, 
quick, feverish kind of jangling noise mingled with the noise of 
the people, and lasted for about two minutes. The scaffold 
stood before us, tenantless and black ; the black chain was 
hanging down ready from the beam. Nobody came. “ He has 
been respited,” some one said ; another said, “ He has killed 
himself in prison.” 

Just then, from under the black prison door, a pale, quiet 
head peered out. It was shockingly bright and distinct; it 
rose up directly, and a man in black appeared on the scaffold, 
and was silently followed by about four more dark figures. 
The first was a tall grave man : we all knew who the second man 
was. “ Thafs he — that's he /” you heard the people say, as the 
devoted man came up. 

I have seen a cast of the head since, but, indeed, should 
never have known it. Courvoisier bore his punishment like a 
man, and walked very firmly. He was dressed in a new black 
suit, as it seemed : his shirt was open. His arms were tied in 
front of him. He opened his hands in a helpless kind of way, 
and clasped them once or twice together. He turned his head 
here and there, and looked about him for an instant with a wild, 
imploring look. His mouth was contracted into a sort of pitiful 
smile. He went and placed himself at once under the beam, 
with his face to St. Sepulchre’s. The tall, grave man in black 
twisted him round swiftly in the other direction, and, drawing 


SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON. 


547 

from his pocket a nightcap, pulled it tight over the patient’s 
head and face. I am not ashamed to say that I could look no 
more, but shut my eyes as the last dreadful act was going on, 
which sent this wretched, guilty soul into the presence of God. 

If a public execution is beneficial — and beneficial it is, no 
doubt, or else the wise laws would not encourage forty thousand 
people to witness it — the next useful thing must be a full de- 
scription of such a ceremony, and all its entourages, and to this 
end the above pages are offered to the reader. How does an 
individual man feel under it ? In what way does he observe 
it, — how does he view r all the phenomena connected with it, — 
what induces him, in the first instance, to go and see it, — and 
how is he moved by it afterwards ? The writer has discarded 
the magazine “ We ” altogether, and spoken face to face with 
the reader, recording every one of the impressions felt by him 
as honestly as he could. 

I must confess, then (for “ I ” is the shortest word, and the 
best in this case), that the sight has left on my mind an ex- 
traordinary feeling of terror and shame. It seems to me that I 
have been abetting an act of frightful wickedness and violence, 
performed by a set of men against one of their fellows ; and I 
pray God that it may soon be out of the power of any man in 
England to witness such a hideous and degrading sight. Forty 
thousand persons (say the Sheriffs), of all ranks and degrees, 
— mechanics, gentlemen, pickpockets, members of both Houses 
of Parliament, street-walkers, newspaper-writers, gather together 
before Newgate at a very early hour ; the most part of them 
give up their natural quiet night’s rest, in order to partake of 
this hideous debauchery, which is more exciting than sleep, or 
than wine, or the last new ballet, or any other amusement they 
can have. Pickpocket and Peer each is tickled by the sight 
alike, and has that hidden lust after blood which influences our 
race. Government, a Christian government, gives us a feast 
every now and then : it agrees — that is to say — a majority in 
the two Houses agrees, that for certain crimes it is necessary 
that a man should be hanged by the neck. Government com- 
mits the criminal’s soul to the mercy of God, stating that here 
on earth he is to look for no mercy ; keeps him for a fortnight 
to prepare, provides him with a clergyman to settle his religious 
matters (if there be time enough, but Government can't wait) ; 
and on a Monday morning, the bell tolling, the clergyman read- 
ing out the word of God, “ I am the resurrection and the life,” 
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” on a Monday 


54 S SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 

morning, at eight o’clock, this man is placed under a beam, 
with a rope connecting it and him ; a plank disappears from 
under him, and those who have paid for good places may see 
the hands of the Government agent, Jack Ketch, coming up 
from his black hole, and seizing the prisoner’s legs, and pulling 
them, until he is quite dead — strangled. 

Many persons, and well-informed newspapers, say that it is 
mawkish sentiment to talk in this way, morbid humanity, cheap 
philanthropy that any man can get up and preach about. There 
is the Observer , for instance, a paper conspicuous for the tre- 
mendous sarcasm which distinguishes its articles, and which 
falls cruelly foul of the Morning Herald. “Courvoisier is 
dead,” says the Observer ; “he died as he had lived — a villain ; 
a lie was in his mouth. Peace be to his ashes. We war not 
with the dead.” What a magnanimous Observer ! From this, 
Observer turns to the Herald , and says, “ Fiat justitia ruat 
coelum .” So much for the Herald. 

We quote from memory, and the quotation from the Ob- 
server possibly is, — De mortuis nil nisi bonutn ; or, Omne ignotum 
pro magnifico ; or, Sero nunquam est ad bonos mores via ; or, 
Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollit mores nec sinit esse feros : 
all of which pithy Roman apophthegms would apply just as 
well. 

“ Peace be to his ashes. He died a villain.” This is both 
benevolence and reason. Did he die a villain*? The Observer 
does not want to destroy him body and soul, evidently, from 
that pious wish that his ashes should be at peace. Is the next 
Monday but one after the sentence the time necessary for a 
villain to repent in ? May a man not require more leisure — a 
week more — six months more — before he has been able to 
make his repentance sure before Him who died for us all ? — 
for all, be it remembered, — not alone for the judge and jury, 
or for the sheriffs, or for the executioner who is pulling down 
the legs of the prisoner, — but for him too, murderer and crimi- 
nal as he is, whom we are killing for his crime. Do we want 
to kill him body and soul ? Heaven forbid ! My lord in the 
black cap specially prays that heaven may have mercy on him ; 
but he must be ready by Monday morning. 

Look at the documents which came from the prison of this 
unhappy Courvoisier during the few days which passed be- 
tween his trial and execution. Were ever letters more painful 
to read ? At first, his statements are false, contradictory, lying. 
He has not repented then. His last declaration seems to be 
honest* as far as the relation of the crime goes. But read the 


SKETCHES AND TRA VELS IN LONDON. 


549 


rest of his statement, the account of his personal history, and 
the crimes which he committed in his young days — then “ how 
the evil thought came to him to put his hand to the work,” — • 
it is evidently the writing of a mad, distracted man. The hor- 
rid gallows is perpetually before him ; he is wild with dread 
and remorse. Clergymen are with him ceaselessly ; religious 
tracts are forced into his hands ; night and day they ply him 
with the heinousness of his crime, and exhortations to repent- 
ance. Read through that last paper of his ; by heaven, it is 
pitiful to read it. See the Scripture phrases brought in now 
and anon ; the peculiar terms of tract-phraseology (I do not 
wish to speak of these often meritorious publications with dis- 
respect); one knows too well how such language is learned, — 
imitated from the priest at the bedside, eagerly seized and ap- 
propriated, and confounded by the poor prisoner. 

But murder is such a monstrous crime (this is the great 
argument), — when a man has killed another it is natural that 
he should be killed. Away with your foolish sentimentalists 
who say no — it is natural. That is the word, and a fine phil- 
osophical opinion it is — philosophical and Christian. Kill a 
man, and you must be killed in turn ; that is the unavoidable 
sequitur. You may talk to a man for a year upon the subject, 
and he will always reply to you, “ It is natural, and therefore 
it must be done. Blood demands blood.” 

Does it ? The system of compensation might be carried 
on ad infinitum, — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as 
by the old Mosaic law. But (putting the fact out of the ques- 
tion, that we have had this statute repealed by the Highest 
Authority), why, because you lose your eye, is that of your op- 
ponent to be extracted likewise ? Where is the reason for the 
practice ? And yet it is just as natural as the death dictum, 
founded precisely on the same show of sense. Knowing, how- 
ever, that revenge is not only evil, but useless, we have given 
it up on all minor points. Only to the last we stick firm, con- 
trary though it be to reason and to Christian law. 

There is some talk, too, of the terror which the sight of this 
spectacle inspires, and of this we have endeavored to give as 
good a notion as we can in the above pages. I fully confess 
that I came away down Snow Hill that morning with a disgust 
for murder, but it was for the murder I saw done. As we 
made our way through the immense crowd, we came upon two 
little girls of eleven and twelve years : one of them was crying 
bitterly, and begged, for heaven’s sake, that some one would 
lead her from that horrid place. This was done, and the chih 


SKETCHES AND TEA VELS IN LONDON 


ss° 

dren were carried into a place of safety. We asked the elder 
girl — and a very pretty one — what brought her into such a 
neighborhood ? The child grinned knowingly, and said, 
“ We’ve koom to see the mon hanged!” Tender law, that 
brings out babes upon such errands, and provides them with 
such gratifying moral spectacles. 

This is the 20th of July, and I may be permitted for my 
part to declare that, for the last fourteen days, so salutary has 
the impression of the butchery been upon me, I have had the 
man’s face continually before my eyes ; that I can see Mr. 
Ketch at this moment, with an easy air, taking the rope from 
his pocket ; that I feel myself ashamed and degraded at the 
brutal curiosity which took me to that brutal sight ; and that 
I pray to Amighty God to cause this disgraceful sin to pass 
from among us, and to cleanse our land of blood. 


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LOVELL’S LIBRARY:-CATALOGUE! 


113. More Words About the Bible, 163. 

by Rev. Jas. S. Bush.. 20 164. 

114. Monsieur Lecoq, Gaboriau ,Pt. I . 20 165, 

Monsieur Lecoq, Ft. II. 20 166. 

115. An Outline of Irish History, by 

Justin H. McCarthy 10 167. 

116. TheLerouge Case, by Gaboriau.. 20 

117. Paul Clifford; by Lord Lytton: ..SO 168. 

118. A New Lease of Life, by Abont. ..’20 

119. Bourbon Lilies „>;* ...... 20, 169. 

120. Other Peoples Money, Gaborian. 20 HO. 

121. The Lady of Lydns, Lytton.. JO 17L 

122. Ameline fieBon?g.. — 15 172. 

123. A Sea Queen, by W* Bussell. .. .20 173. 

124. The Ladies LindbrCfU by Mrs. 174. 

Oliphant f. .42!) 

125. Haunted Hearts, by Simpson... .10 175. 

126. Loys' Lord Hereford, by The 176, 

Duchess 20 177, 

1.27. Under Two Flags, Oui da, Pt. 1 . 3(5 178. 
Under Two Flags, PL- 11. ......15 179. 

128. Money, by Lord Lytton 10 180. 

129. In Peril of His Life, by Gaborisn.20 181. 

130. India, by Max M tiller, 20 182, 

531. Jets and Flasks. ......... 183. 

132. Moonshine an A Marguerites, by 134. 

The Duchess ... 10 

133. Mr. Scarborough's Family, by 185. 

Anthony Trollope, Parti 15 

Mi Scarborough" s Family, PtII.15 
184. Arden- by A. Mary F. Robinson, 15 
135. The Tower of Percemont......20 186. 

186.. Yolanda, by Ww. Black \..2£> 

137. Cruel London , by Joseph Hafcton.20 187. 

138. The Gilded Clique, by Gaboriau.20 188. 

139. Pike County Foiks, IS. H. Mott. .20 189. 

140. Cricket on the Hearth JO 

1 41 . Henry Esmond, by Thackeray .20 190. 

142. Strange Adventures of a Phae- 191. 

ton, by Wm. Black 20 192, 

143. Denis Duval, -by Thackeray 10 103. 

144. Old Curiosity Snop,Dickene,PtI.15 

Old Curiosity Shop, Part II.,. . .15 194. 

145. I vanhoe, by Scott, Part I ....... 15 195. 

I vanhoe, by Seott, Part II ...... 15 

146. White Wings, by Wm. Black.. 20 196. 

147. The Sketch Book, by Irving .20 197. 

348. Catherine, by W. M. Thackeray. 10 

149. Janet’s Repentance, by Eliot — It) 198. 

150. Barnaby Rtidge, Dickens, Pt I . . 15 199. 

Barnaby Ru dge. Part II 15 

151. Felix Holt, by George Eliot 20 

152. Richelieu, by Lord Lytton 10 

153. Sunrise, by Wm. Black, Part 1 . 35 200. 
Sunrise, by Wm. Black. Part 11.15 201. 

154. Tour of the Work! in 80 Days. .20 

155. Mystery of Orcival, Gabor i an.. . .20 

156. Lovel, the Widower, by W. M. 202. 

Thackeray 10 203. 

157. Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 204. 

maid, by Thomas Hardy, 10 205. 

158. David Copperheld, Dickens, Pt 1.20 

David Copper fie! d , I ’art. II 20 206. 

160. Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Parti. .15 207, 
Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Part II. 15 

161. Promise of Marriage, Gaboriau.. 10 203. 

162. Faith arxd Unfaith, by The 

iDucfces* ..20 1 


The Happy Man, by Lover... 30 
Barry Lyndon, by Thackeray,... 20 

Eyre’s Acquittal ..10 

Twenty Thousand Leagues Un- 
der the Sea, by Jules Verne — 20 
.Anti-Slavery Days, by James 

Freeman Clarke 20 

Beauty's Daughters, by The 

Duchess. . .. — 20 

Beyond the Sunrise 20 

Hard Tim > > y Charles Dickens.20 
Tom Oriiii * . Log* by M. Scott . .20 
Vanity Fair, by W.M. Thackeray. 20 
Underground Russia, Stepniak. .20 
Middleinarch, by Elliot, Pt I... .20 

.Middleinarch, Part II. 20 

Sir Tom; by Mrs. Oliphant 20 

Pelham, by Lord Lytton .20 

The Story of Ida 10 

'Madcap Violet, by Wm. Black.. 20 

The Little Pilgrim 10 

Kilmeny, by Win. Black. 20 

Whist, or Bnmblepnppy ?. ....... 10 

The Beautiful Wretch, Black.. ..20 

Her Mother’s Sin, by B. M. Clay .20 
Green Pastures ana Piccadilly, 

by Wm. Black 20 

The Mysterious island, by Jules 

Verne, Part X. . . . 16 

Tbs Mysterious Island, Part II. .15 
The Mysterious Island, Part III. 15 
Torn Brown at Oxford, Part I. . .15 
Tom Brown at Oxford, Part II. .15 
Thicker than Water, by J. Payn.20 
In Silk Attire, by W r m. Black. . .20 
Scottish Chiefs, Jane Porter, Pfc.1. 20 

Scottish. Chiefs, Part II 20 

Willy Reilly, by Will Carleton..20 
The Nautz Family, ly Shelley.20 
Great Expectations, by Dickeng.20 
Pondennis,by Thackeray, Part 1.20 
Pendenui8, by Thackeray , Part 11.20 

Widow Bedott Papers 20 

Daniel Deronda,Geo. Eliot, Pt. 1.20 

Daniel Deronda, Part II. 20 

Altiora Peto, by Oliphant 20 

By the Gate of the Sea, by David 

Christie Murray 15 

Tales of a Traveller, by Irving. . . 20 
Life and Voyages of Columbus, 
by Washington Irving, Part I.. 20 
Life and Voyages of Columbus, 
by Washin, ■ on. Irving, Part II 20 

The 1 Igrim’u Progress ... 20 

Martin Chnzzlewit, by Charles 

Dickens, Part I 20 

Martin Chuzzlewit, Part II 20 

TheophrastusSuch, Geo. Eliot. . .20 
Disarmed, M. Betham-Edwards.JS 
Eugene Aram, by Lord Lytton. 20 
The; Spanish Gypsy and Other 

Poems, by George Eliot 20 

Cast Up by th e Sea. Baker 20 

Mill on the Floss, Eliot, Pt. I. ..15 

Mill on the Floss, Part II 15 

Brother Jacob, and Mr. Gilfil’s 
Love Story, by George Eliot. . .10 
Wrecks in the Sea of Life 20 


BRAIN AND NERVE POOD. 



Vitalized Phos-phites, 


COMPOSED OF THE NERVE-GIVING PRINCIPLES OF 


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